| One of the biggest names in Trump World goes to trial this week for not cooperating with the Jan. 6 congressional investigation. Here's what you need to know about former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and whether he could go to jail. What he's charged with: Contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 committee's subpoenas calling on him to turn over documents and testify about the attack on the Capitol. What the trial is about: Did Bannon willfully ignore Congress's subpoena? He's argued that he thought he was under executive privilege restrictions from Donald Trump (even though he wasn't working in the White House in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and it's questionable whether Trump did invoke executive privilege for Bannon). Bannon also said at the last minute he'd be willing to talk to the committee, but the judge said that doesn't change the fact he ignored Congress's subpoenas.  Steve Bannon in 2017 when he worked for President Trump. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) | What the trial isn't about: What information Bannon can provide to the committee. He was a regular presence at a hotel near the White House where other Trump figures plotted to try to overthrow the election on Jan. 6. And he hosts a popular right-wing podcast, on which he predicted the day before the attack that "all hell is going to break loose." But the trial's focus is solely on whether he brushed off Congress without reason. Walmart supports career growth & opportunity. 75% of store, club and supply chain management started as hourly associates. At Walmart, there is a path for everyone. Learn more. | |  | | | | Could he go to jail?: It's possible. The minimum sentence for the crime he's charged with is 30 days in jail, though it's rare for someone to go to jail for this, notes The Post's Spencer Hsu. (This is a rare crime to begin with, but most others convicted of this charge have gotten probation.) But prosecutors argue that Bannon so blatantly ignored Congress that he should be punished for it. The debate in Texas over a mother's life  Demonstrators in Austin in June. (Eric Gay/AP) | Increasingly, red states are moving to ban abortion in almost all instances, including rape and incest. Most of these states make one exception: if the life of the mother is in danger. But Texas is trying to restrict even that. It sued the federal government over whether the state can prohibit abortion when the mother's health (and not necessarily life) is in question. Here's the debate: The federal government says abortion should be legal if the mother's health is in "serious jeopardy" or the mother faces "serious impairment or dysfunction of bodily functions or any bodily organ." That could include an abortive procedure to aid a miscarriage, or to end an ectopic pregnancy. After the fall of Roe, the government emphasized a 30-year-old law requiring doctors to provide emergency medical treatment, even if that means an abortion. Texas says abortion should be legal only if the mother's life is in danger — and not if she just has health issues that could arise from the pregnancy or its loss. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) says in his lawsuit that the Biden administration is requiring Texas "to provide abortions when the life of the mother is not in danger." The problem for Texas and Republicans, as The Post's Michael Scherer and Rachel Roubein point out, is that a near-total abortion ban is unpopular. Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of Americans support abortion being legal when the mother's life or health is threatened — including 62 percent of Republicans. And then you have stories like this that can be difficult for Republicans to defend: A San Antonio doctor told the Associated Press one of her patients was having a miscarriage but the fetus still had a heartbeat, so they had to wait 24 hours for her to meet the life-threatening definition under Texas law to help her. Add that to the 10-year-old rape survivor who had to travel out of state to terminate her pregnancy, and you can see how Democrats are going to paint Republicans as extreme on abortion. A name you should know: Kari Lake  Kari Lake, an Arizona Republican running for governor, at a Trump rally in Florence, Ariz., in January. (Ross D. Franklin/AP) | Who she is: A top Republican candidate for governor of Arizona. The Governor's Mansion in this hotly contested swing state (which voted for Trump in 2016, then Joe Biden in 2020) is open in November, and the primary is in a few weeks. Why she's in the news: Lake is the candidate that establishment Republicans want to stop. That's because she keeps falsely claiming the election was stolen, including in Arizona, and she is using inflammatory language to do it: "We want people to be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail," she's said. But she does have — no surprise — Trump's endorsement. Now former vice president Mike Pence is going directly after Lake — and Trump by extension. On Monday he endorsed her opponent Karrin Taylor Robson. Pence said Lake "is misleading voters with no evidence." Left unsaid is that he and many other top Republicans don't think Lake can win statewide in November. It's perhaps Pence's boldest move yet to challenge Trump — and the former president's insistence on supporting candidates that deny the 2020 election results. But this race is also another sign of how radicalized the Republican Party has become on elections: The "mainstream" candidate (Robson) still won't say the 2020 election was fairly decided. | 
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