BANNON GIVEN WARNING BY TRUMP LAWYER
▶ White House furious after former chief strategist is quoted in new book accusing president’s son of ‘treason’
A lawyer for Donald Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter accusing former presidential chief strategist Steve Bannon of breaching a non-disclosure agreement by speaking to the author of a book.
Excerpts from Michael Wolff’s book released on Wednesday sparked a firestorm in the US capital, with the president lashing out at Mr Bannon, describing the right-wing media pundit as insane and irrelevant.
In a letter to Mr Bannon, quoted by US media, lawyer Charles Harder wrote: “You have breached the agreement by, among other things, communicating with author Michael Wolff about Mr Trump, his family members” and his presidential campaign.
The letter accused Mr Bannon
of “disclosing confidential information to Mr Wolff, and making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements to Mr Wolff about Mr Trump [and] his family members”.
In the excerpts from Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White
House, which is published next week, Mr Bannon is quoted as having described a meeting between Mr Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law and campaign chairman and a Kremlin-connected lawyer as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.
Mr Bannon, who left the White House in August, is also quoted as saying the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election will focus on money laundering.
Donald Trump Jr held a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 after an intermediary promised material that would incriminate Mr Trump’s rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting at Trump Tower in New York.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers,” Mr Bannon was quoted as saying.
“They didn’t have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” he said.
The US president hit back at Mr Bannon, saying he “has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind”.
Mr Trump said Mr Bannon – who engineered the New York real estate mogul’s link to the nationalist far right and helped to create a fertile media atmosphere for Mr Trump’s platform – was “only in it for himself”.
Mr Manafort, meanwhile, on Wednesday sued Mr Mueller, alleging the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia exceeded its legal authority.
The lawsuit could be the first legal test of how far Mr Mueller’s mandate extends, a question that is critical to his investigations into Mr Manafort’s and others’ business dealings.
Under the terms of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s order in May appointing Mr Mueller, the special prosecutor can not only investigate links or co-ordination between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russia, but can also look into “any matters that arose or may arise directly” from the investigation.
Mr Manafort’s indictment made no reference to any activity related to his work on the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, and the lawsuit asked the court to “set aside all actions” taken so far against him.
Donald Trump claimed that Steve Bannon was involved in his campaign purely ‘for himself’