Gagged: Bannon says WH ordered him not to reply
Washington, Jan. 17: Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon Tuesday refused to answer questions from a congressional committee probing the president's campaign links to Russia, saying he was under orders from the White House not to.
Bannon was quizzed voluntarily behind closed doors by the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, the first time he has testified in the probe investigating whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in its bid to influence the 2016 US elections.
It was unlikely to be Bannon's last such testimony: the New York Times and the Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Bannon has been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special counsel investigating the same issue.
That made Bannon the first person from Trump's inner circle to receive a grand jury subpoena from Mueller, which is also looking at whether Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation. When appearing before the Intelligence Committee, Bannon refused to answer, citing ‘executive privilege.’
“Steve Bannon and his attorney asserted a remarkably broad definition of executive privilege,” Representative Jim Himes, a Democratic member of the committee, said on CNN. “Now remember, it's the President who has executive privilege. So they conferred with the White House which said that communication in the White House were off limits,” Himes said.
“There were an awful lot of questions we weren't able to answer based on this novel theory of executive privilege,” he said.
The committee itself eventually subpoenaed Bannon for refusing to answer its questions, reports said. Still, he again balked after the White House was consulted, said Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee.