Crooked Ex-Congressman Is Latest Soldier In Bannon’s #War (VIDEOS/TWEET)



When Steve Bannon parachuted back to Breitbart News after being shoved out as White House chief strategist, he declared that he intended to go to war for Donald Trump. That meant pushing out Senators and congressmen whom he didn’t believe weren’t solid enough in their commitment to “make America great again.”

We got a very good idea who meets Bannon’s standards when Bannon publicly threw his weight behind Roy Moore in the race for Jeff Sessions’ old Senate seat–even though Trump was supporting the man initially appointed to that seat, Luther Strange. In so doing, Bannon lent his name to a man who is a full-blown theocrat. Well, on Wednesday, Bannon gave us another idea where his standards lie. He announced that he is supporting an admitted tax fraudster’s bid to take back his former seat in Congress.

Back in 2014, Michael Grimm, a Republican who Staten Island and part of South Brooklyn, was indicted for hiding over a million dollars in taxable receipts and wages at his former health food restaurant. It initially looked like the Democrats had been handed a seat on a platter. However, the Democratic challenger, former city councilman Dominic Recchia, ran a spectacularly inept campaign, allowing Grimm to win by 13 points.

Just a month later, Grimm pleaded guilty to filing four years of bogus federal and New York state tax returns after underreporting the gross receipts from his restaurant during that time. He was under the delusion that he could stay in Congress, even though longstanding convention holds that convicted felons can’t vote or take part in committee work until the House Ethics Committee investigates the matter. He finally came to his senses and resigned on January 5, 2015. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, but released in May 2016 after serving seven months.


On Sunday, Grimm announced he was challenging the man who replaced him in New York’s 11th District, fellow Republican Dan Donovan, in the 2018 primary. Watch a clip of his announcement here, via The Staten Island Advance.

While he apologized for his crimes, he claimed that the Justice Department and the U. S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn had been “weaponized against me.” He also played up his support of Trump, contending that Trump “needs help in draining the swamp.” Indeed, one of his advisers is Michael Caputo, a former adviser to Trump.

By most accounts, Donovan will likely have the support of the state and national Republican establishment. But Grimm’s fortunes got a huge boost on Wednesday, when he met with Bannon at Bannon’s Capitol Hill home. Soon afterward, Grimm tweeted a picture of himself with Bannon.

According to Andy Surabian, a longtime Bannon confidant, Bannon liked the fact that Grimm branded himself as “a straight-talking, fire-breathing, conservative populist.”

Uh huh. So does Bannon also like that Grimm is an admitted tax evader? Or that he threatened to hurl a reporter over the Capitol balcony? In case you missed the latter moment, watch here.

Grimm later apologized, saying he’d lost his cool.

And what does it say about Grimm that he is willing to accept the backing of a guy with documented ties to white supremacists, quotes from one of the most staggeringly racist books ever written, and has no qualms about keeping blacks and people who don’t own property from voting? What does it say about Grimm that he is willing to work with a man who tolerated the antics of one of the most notorious trolls on the Internet, Milo Yiannopoulos?

Bannon’s backing is even more critical than it looks on paper. Grimm would theoretically have the resources to mount a third-party bid if he loses the primary to Donovan. If that were to happen, there’s a very good chance of the Democrats taking this seat. The 11th is far and away the most conservative district in New York City, and under normal conditions is the only seat in the Big Apple where Republicans even have a prayer of winning. While every other district in the city has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+16 or better, the 11th has a PVI of R+3. Even though it swung hard to Trump in 2016–Trump took 54 percent of the vote here–it’s still very winnable on paper, and theoretically would be among the first to flip in a wave.


When you think about it, it’s not all that surprising Bannon is backing Grimm. After all, he propped up a man who plastered a private cell phone number on social media, mocked the disabled, condoned violence at his rallies, and isn’t the least bit repentant about degrading women. And now he’s backing an admitted tax cheat and fraudster. Apparently such things as basic standards of decency aren’t high on the list of priorities for a guy who wants to burn everything down.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.