In other words, Bannon made an unusual choice. He could have tried to find middle ground between what Trump would want (or, quite possibly, what Trump actually recommended) and the authority of Congress. But for Bannon, there was no real debate about which power center posed more risk. It seems that Bannon is much more concerned about crossing Trump than he is crossing the federal government.

There are reasons he would hold this position, certainly. Bannon was pulled into Trump’s orbit in 2016 but is now fully intertwined with the former president. Bannon’s audience has gone from Breitbart’s readership to simply a subset (albeit a large one) of Trump’s. Since the 2020 presidential election, he’s woven himself more closely into Trump’s world, his daily podcast a distillation of the evolving furies of the far-right. He still has Trump’s ear.

It’s not clear what would have happened had Bannon tried to comply with the Jan. 6 committee, but it is safe to assume that Trump would not have appreciated it. Bannon could likely have survived that. He’d been ejected from Trump’s orbit before, after all, but allowed the gravity of shared grievance to slowly draw him back in. But a trial and possible jail stint are apparently preferable for him than risking expulsion. For Bannon, the indictment will likely be a point of pride, proof that he’s a true soldier in this world-altering struggle that he’s been hyping on his show.