Edition · October 21, 2021

Trump World’s Paper Trail Starts Squealing

A backfill look at the biggest October 21, 2021 Trump-world screwups: contempt, subpoenas, and the kind of legal weather that only gets worse when you pretend it’s sunny.

On October 21, 2021, the Trump orbit had a rough day in court, in Congress, and in the larger political bloodstream. The most consequential theme was simple: the post-insurrection accountability machine kept grinding, and Trump allies kept trying to jam it with privilege claims, noncooperation, and old-standby rage politics. That rarely ends well. The day’s strongest stories centered on Steve Bannon’s contempt fight, the House Jan. 6 committee’s escalating document demands, and the way Trump’s broader effort to keep the investigation bottled up was turning into a public admissions problem.

Closing take

The through line from this date is not subtle: when Trump-world meets a subpoena, it tends to choose drama over compliance and then act shocked when the consequences arrive in a stack of paper. October 21, 2021 was one of those days when the paper won.

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Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

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Story

House votes to hold Steve Bannon in contempt over Jan. 6 subpoena

★★★★★Fuckup rating 5/5 Five-alarm fuckup

The House voted 229-202 on Oct. 21, 2021, to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. The resolution directs the House to certify the matter to the U.S. attorney in Washington for possible prosecution.

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