While using his stated willingness to testify—now that Trump has waived the privilege—as a defense in the criminal trial, Bannon’s game is at the same time designed to prevent him from testifying at all. It sounds like a neat trick, but it makes perfect sense if you keep in mind one central move in the game: Bannon is only pretending to be willing to testify. It is his public posture of being willing to testify, not actually testifying, that Bannon will use as his defense.

He’ll perform that little trick by putting conditions on his testimony that the Jan. 6th Committee cannot accept. He’ll demand that his testimony be public, meaning that it will be broadcast live on television. He’ll wrap this demand in the flag: The public deserves to hear the whole truth. The selectively edited fragments of testimony by other witnesses are misleading and out of context. I demand to set the record straight, and I won’t put up with being selectively misquoted. Or something like that.

Allowing Bannon to give his testimony in a publicly televised hearing, of course, would be an absolute disaster. The committee would be crazy to even consider it. Just imagine what publicly televised testimony would look like. Bannon would give direct, responsive answers only if he believed it will help him. Otherwise, he’d be belligerent, disrespectful, and evasive. He’d have selective memory whenever convenient. He’d mock and ridicule his questioners. He’d hijack the proceedings, change the narrative, spew pro-Trump, anti-committee propaganda at every turn, and take full advantage of every opportunity to undo everything the committee has accomplished. Why in the world would the committee ever sign on to that?