Bannon could face tough questions
Fiery ex-Trump strategist testifies to House Intelligence Committee today
WASHINGTON – Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is likely to testify behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday as part of its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Bannon, who left the White House in August amid clashes with other staff members, had a public split with President Trump this month.
In his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, author Michael Wolff said Bannon called Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer to try to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton “treasonous.”
Trump responded with a scathing statement: “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
Bannon later said he was referring to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, not Trump Jr., when he criticized the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians.
The Intelligence Committee asked Bannon in December if he would agree to come in for an interview. Here are some questions he could face:
What information do you have about the Trump Tower meeting?
Bannon did not join the Trump campaign until August 2016, about two months after the Trump Tower meeting June 9 that Trump Jr. attended with Manafort and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. The three met with Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and others.
Investigators will want to know whether he spoke to Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort or anyone else on the campaign about what happened at the meeting and what contact the campaign may have had with participants afterward.
Do you have any knowledge that Donald Trump was introduced to the Russian attorney and other participants before or after the meeting?
In Wolff ’s book, Bannon said there was zero chance that Trump Jr. didn’t walk them up to his father’s office on the 26th floor.
Trump has denied he knew about the meeting until July 2017, when news reports about it surfaced.
Did Trump ever discuss the Trump Tower meeting or his response to it with you?
Investigators are looking into the president’s possible involvement in crafting a statement from Trump Jr. in July 2017 that described the meeting with the Russians as “primarily” about Russian adoptions and “not a campaign issue.”
Those claims were misleading. Trump Jr. released emails in which the meeting was arranged and acknowledged that he agreed to go because he hoped to get damaging information about Clinton from the Russians.