‘Under White House orders to not answer House committee’
WASHINGTON: Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Ban non on 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.
Ban non 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 polls.
It was unlikely to be Bannon’s last such testimony: The New York Times and the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Ban non has been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller, the 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 in the probe, which is also looking at whether Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation.
When appearing before the Intelligence Committee, Ban non refused to answer a number of questions, citing “executive privilege” allowing Trump to keep information from the public.
“Steve Ban non 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 the executive privilege and so they went back, conferred with the White House, and the White House said that anything that happened, any communications that happened while Steve Bannon was in the White House or during the transition, any communications were off limits,” Himes said.