Bullshit artists always bullshit

Remember Steve Bannon getting a letter from Trump waiving any privilege and permitting Bannon to testify?

After stonewalling the committee for eight months, Bannon reversed course on Saturday, suggesting Trump had “waived” claims of executive privilege and permitted him to testify. Trump signed a letter supporting Bannon’s reversal and claimed to “waive” executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn said that Clark had confirmed in his June 29 interview what DOJ long suspected: that Trump had never invoked executive privilege to block Bannon from testifying.

  Politico

So what's with this bullshit letter and Bannon's sudden willingness to testify? Was it just that they were hoping the Committee would be stupid enough to put him on TV?

“The Defendant’s timing suggests that the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default,” Vaughn wrote.

“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability.”Clark told DOJ “that the former President never invoked executive privilege over any particular information or materials; that the former President’s counsel never asked or was asked to attend the Defendant’s deposition before the Select Committee; that the Defendant’s attorney misrepresented to the Committee what the former President’s counsel had told the Defendant’s attorney; and that the former President’s counsel made clear to the Defendant’s attorney that the letter provided no basis for total noncompliance.”

[...]

The Jan. 6 select committee recently revealed that Clark interviewed with them as well, raising doubts about the Trump camp’s effort to send false slates of electors to Congress in December 2020, part of a multifaceted plan to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election.

Bannon’s attorneys indicated they were aware of Clark’s interview last week, citing it — without identifying Clark — as a reason to delay Bannon’s trial until October.

In a separate filing, DOJ also rejected additional arguments by Bannon to delay his trial, including a newly lodged argument that one of the prosecutors on the case, Molly Gaston, once worked with a top select committee staffer, Kristin Amerling, on Capitol Hill and were in a book club together.

[...]

“As the Government informed the Defendant on July 8, she and Ms. Gaston worked together over a decade ago and were in a book club that Ms. Gaston has not attended in almost two years. At no point did the Government represent that Ms. Amerling and Ms. Gaston have a close personal relationship, because they do not" [Vaughn wrote.]

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bannon doesn't want to go to trial

Steve Bannon – who defied a congressional subpoena and is set to go to trial on criminal contempt charges – told the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection on Saturday that he is now willing to testify, ideally at a public hearing, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

[...]

Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He has argued that he was free to ignore his congressional subpoena in order to protect Trump’s potential privilege claims. But federal prosecBannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. utors and other legal experts have argued that privilege does not apply to Bannon – who left his White House gig as chief strategist years before the Capitol riot – and did not give him the authority to refuse to provide any documents or testimony to the committee.

[...]

Bannon’s reversal comes after he received a letter from former President Donald Trump waiving executive privilege, although both the House select committee and federal prosecutors contend that privilege claim never gave Bannon carte blanche to ignore a congressional subpoena in the first place.

“When you first received the Subpoena to testify and provide documents, I invoked Executive Privilege. However, I watched how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, and all of the trauma you must be going through for the love of your Country, and out of respect for the Office of the President,” Trump wrote in a Saturday letter to Bannon, which was also obtained by CNN.

“Therefore, if you reach an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive Executive Privilege for you, which allows you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly” Trump added, as he went on to decry the committee of “Thugs and Hacks.”

  CNN

They want him to be televised. Surely the committee won't go for that.

Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to his contempt charges, was set to go to trial July 18. Providing testimony would not necessarily absolve him of the criminal contempt charges he faces, so it’s unclear how his upcoming trial would be affected if Bannon strikes a deal with the committee to testify. He is set to appear in court for a hearing in his case Monday.

UPDATE:  Trump never claimed privilege in the first place.  It's all bullshit, all the time, with these assholes.

I bet he didn't refuse to answer Mueller's questions

Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours [over multiple days this week] in conversations with the team led by Mueller.

[...]

After a more than four-week stalemate, Bannon also returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to resume his interview with the House Intelligence Committee that was halted when he earlier refused to answer key questions in the Russia probe.

He left today after four hours, answering little more than the two dozen questions that the White House had negotiated with the House’s lead counsel.

[...]

The committee had issued a subpoena in their initial Jan. 16 interview when Bannon would not address issues that arose during his time on the Trump transition team, in the White House and after he left his top position there. The subpoena deadline was postponed three times as House lawyers negotiated with the White House over what Bannon would be willing to discuss without the White House invoking executive privilege to bar the testimony.

Lawmakers indicated Thursday that his continued non-cooperation might require the committee to take the next step and consider beginning the process of holding Bannon in contempt of Congress.

“The only questions he would answer were questions that had been scripted, literally scripted for him by the White House,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told reporters. “Whenever we sought to probe anything beyond the four corners of the specific wording of the question, he refused to answer. That’s not how executive privilege works.”

  NBC

They're not going to hold him in contempt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bannon testifies - or does he?

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday complied with a subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee to appear before the committee Thursday and testify about Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Bannon faced a deadline to comply with a subpoena last week, but when he failed to show up for the closed-door interview, the Republican-led committee extended it until this week.

[...]

Last week, Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the White House wanted Bannon to answer a set of 14 yes-or-no pre-approved questions.

  Washington Examiner

What? Why not just a set of discovery questions on legal paper then?

I don't know what's going on here.

Seems like Bannon may have been the one person in the Trump White House who understood what was happening, but I have no idea what the House Intel Committee - that most worthless of worthless investigations - wants to ask him.

The Trump presidency’s first six months were the most incompetent and least accomplished in modern history. And its very survival was clouded by the gathering storm of the special prosecutor’s probe.

When it came to Mueller’s investigation, Priebus insisted he personally had nothing to worry about. But Bannon warned that the hounds had been loosed. “You’ve got Mueller’s team, which has got 19 killers who are all experts in wire fraud, money-laundering, and tax evasion,” Bannon said. “Doesn’t sound like collusion to me. But they’ve got unlimited budgets and subpoena power. And here’s what we’ve got on our side: two guys who’ve got legal pads and Post-Its.

“It’s like [certain members of the administration think that] no one took down the Gambino family,” Bannon continued. “Mueller’s doing a roll-up just like he did with the Gambinos. [Former campaign manager Paul] Manafort’s the caporegime, right? And [Rick] Gates [Manafort’s deputy] is a made man! [George] Papadopoulos is equivalent to a wiseguy out in a social club in Brooklyn. This is like a Wagner opera. In the overture you get all the strands of the music you’re going to hear for three hours. Well, Mueller opened with a bang. He totally caught these guys by surprise. So if you’re not going to fight, you’re going to get rolled over.”

  Vanity Fair

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

I've also seen a couple of accounts saying Bannon has been spending time with Mueller's team this week.

Bannon avoiding House Intel committee

He'd rather eal with Mueller. Very interesting.

Steve Bannon will not appear in front of the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday, despite his subpoena, CNN first reported and Axios has confirmed.

[...]

A source familiar with Bannon's situation told Axios that the CNN story is accurate “except Bannon is not currently risking contempt because last night the committee agreed to delay the subpoena for another week while they try to work out proper scope of questioning with the White House.”

  Axios

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is likely to meet with special counsel Robert Mueller next week, NBC News reported Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the process.

[...]

Bannon reportedly struck a deal last month with Mueller's team to avoid testifying before a grand jury. The former Breitbart News chief was the first close Trump staffer or confidant to be served a grand jury subpoena related to Mueller's probe of possible collusion between the campaign and Russia.

[...]

The news of Bannon's possible meeting with the special counsel comes as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said the panel should begin contempt proceedings against Bannon if he refuses to come back and testify about alleged Russian meddling in the election.

Last month, Bannon had refused to answer questions about his time in the White House during a closed-door session with the House intelligence panel.

  CNBC

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And the Dems aren't really unhappy about it, are they?

It looks like Trump just added to his counts of obstruction of justice by  putting this gag order on Bannon.  They may be hoping to take any charges to the Supreme Court where they expect to have favorable, rather than legal, results.

Now is the time to use your two-party, lesser of two evils approach to voting, and put Democrats in every Congressional race in November. At least we can get impeachment proceedings that way.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Even more unbelievable

As lawmakers probed Bannon’s time working for President Donald Trump, Bannon’s attorney Bill Burck was asking the White House counsel’s office by phone during the Tuesday session whether his client could answer the questions.

  AP News

While Bannon was testifying, his attorney was on the phone to the White House! If the committee had wanted a White House represenative to censor Bannon, I'm sure they could have asked for one.

It’s unclear who Burck was communicating with in the White House. He is also representing top White House lawyer Don McGahn in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

I don't care who he was checking in with. This is outrageous. I can't believe the committee isn't coming down hard on the White House. Oh wait. I guess I can.

Jesus.

I really don't think Mueller should let Bannon voluntarily testify.  I thnk he should send him before the Grand Jury.  This is nuts.

Excellent question.  I think we know the answer.

Shut down the House investigation.  It's a waste of money.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

FURTHER UPDATE:

So it wasn't just Bannon and his lawyer

The committee itself "had an agreement" with Trump. What a fucking surprise. And by "the committee", I mean Devin Nunes.

The White House believed it had an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee to limit questions for Steve Bannon only to events on the presidential campaign, and not during the ousted former chief strategist's time in the Trump administration, an official told CNBC.

According to the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, staffers for the committee and the White House on Friday discussed the parameters of Bannon's testimony.

  CNBC

No fucking way. This is the most worthless, waste of time and money investigation they could possibly come up with.

The White House emerged from that conversation believing it had an agreement to limit the questioning of Bannon just to events during the campaign, and not during the transition period or his time in the White House.

[...]

[H]ours into Bannon's closed-door testimony on Tuesday, Bannon's lawyers informed the White House from Capitol Hill that the questions would extend beyond the scope of what the White House understood the agreement to be. At that point, the White House told Bannon not to answer any further.

So, obviously, there is something they don't want Bannon telling. What kind of investigation gets parameters from the person being investigated? Ridiculous.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, said the White House did not inform him or his fellow party members on the panel about such an agreement. "That was never conveyed to the minority," Schiff said Tuesday night.

[...]

"And I think it came as quite a surprise to our entire committee frankly, apart from the majority staffer that was involved in that communication."

Gee, I wonder who that might have been.

At that point, House Intelligence Committee Republicans and Democrats joined forces to issue Bannon a subpoena on the spot to compel his testimony.

Which he refused to honor, on orders of the White House.

"Look, we've been completely cooperative throughout this entire process,"[Press Secretary Sarah] Sanders said. "We're going to continue to be cooperative. But we're also going to maintain some of the executive privileges here at the White House."

Look, cooperative means something other than what you think it means. It certainly doesn't mean telling the investigators what quesitons they can ask. No shit.

Unbelievable.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It's even worse than that!

Bannon agreed to Mueller interview

I suppose he could always be brought before a Grand Jury later. On the other hand, it still seems suspiciously like he might have been cooperating with Mueller, and the GJ subpoena was for show to the Trump cabal. Who knows?

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, has agreed to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller formally subpoenaed Bannon last week to testify in front of a grand jury, a move some saw as a ploy by Mueller to push Bannon to speak to his investigators in private. And it seems that gamble paid off.

  Vox

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Totally agree

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A couple more points on Bannon and the Grand Jury subpoena

Bannon's current attorney als represents Priebus (and maybe others).  So, it makes sense that Mueller might not want that attorney present when he questions Bannon, so as to avoid giving him specific clues as to where Mueller's attention lies before he's ready for him to know.

It's also possible that it's a warning to Trump's other inner circle cabal that they could be subpoenaed, and also generally just to increase the heat.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

I suppose he could always be brought before a Grand Jury later. On the other hand, it still seems suspiciously like he might have been cooperating with Mueller, and the GJ subpoena was for show to the Trump cabal. Who knows?

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, has agreed to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller formally subpoenaed Bannon last week to testify in front of a grand jury, a move some saw as a ploy by Mueller to push Bannon to speak to his investigators in private. And it seems that gamble paid off.

  Vox

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Executive privilege for Bannon?

The White House order not to speak essentially amounted to a gag order, Himes argued.

“This raises some very serious issues about whether we’ll get straight answers from anybody who is or was associated with the administration or is or was associated with the transition,” Himes said.

Himes confirmed that Bannon was subpoenaed during his more than 10 hour hearing to compel him to answer questions. However, Himes said, Bannon still asserted executive privilege.

[...]

Himes said he was not familiar with an individual using executive privilege as it relates to conversations with the president-elect, or conversations that don’t involve the president.

  The Hill

Perhaps because that privilege doesn't exist?

A source familiar with Bannon’s interview told The Daily Beast that despite the subpoena—issued by Devin Nunes, the typically Trump-friendly chairman of the committee—Bannon refused to answer questions about events that happened after Election Day.

[...]

“This was characterized as a result of his being there voluntary; he’s there of his own volition and could refuse to answer questions based on what the White House instructed him to do,” Schiff added. “We then were able to be promptly provide him with a subpoena and they went back to the White House and got the same instruction back again, basically: We don’t care whether it’s under compulsory process or voluntary basis, we’re instructing you to effectively put in place a gag rule.”

[...]

This situation has committee members concerned that other top White House officials will also refuse to answer their questions. Hope Hicks, the president’s communications director, is scheduled to testify before the committee this week.

  Daily Beast

I'm gonna go out on a limb here - she'll be under the same gag order.

Think about this for a minute: the White House has ordered people to ignore Congressional subpoenas. 

About things that happened before the president was the president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bannon subpoenaed last week by Mueller and today by House Intel Panel

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

[...]

The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle.

[...]

Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsel’s offices about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and about the president’s conduct in office, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently than the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.

  NYT

You can bet your ass there was a good reason.

Prosecutors generally prefer to interview witnesses before a grand jury when they believe they have information that the witnesses do not know or when they think they might catch the witnesses in a lie.

[...]

It is much easier for a witness to stop the questioning or sidestep questions in an interview than during grand jury testimony, which is transcribed, and witnesses are required to answer every question.

“By forcing someone to testify through a subpoena, you are providing the witness with cover because they can say, ‘I had no choice — I had to go in and testify about everything I knew,’” said Solomon L. Wisenberg.

Trump must be sweating from every pore. Is there any chance "Sloppy Steve" is cooperating with Mueller on the sly?

Despicable Donnie will be stress eating cheeseburgers day and night waiting for the Mueller knock on his own door.

And, some crazy shit coming out of Bannon's House Intel testimony today...

Fallen former President Trump confidante Steve Bannon was served immediate subpoenas during his closed-door meeting with lawmakers Tuesday to provide testimony on information the White House instructed him not to share, according to sources with knowledge of the conversations.

In the now hours-long, ongoing interview conducted by investigators for the House Intelligence Committee, Bannon’s attorney told lawmakers that the White House directed his client not to answer questions about his time in the White House or during the transition.

Sources told Fox News Bannon did not invoke any sort of legal “privilege,” including executive privilege, to support this refusal.

  Fox

What's he playing at? Trying to get back in good graces? Trying to hide a secret cooperation with Mueller? And, WTF, the White House instructed him not to answer Congressional investigation questions??

Actually, I'm kind of surprised Nunes didn't let him get away with clamming up.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bannon testifies today

We'll never see the transcript on this one.  We'll have to hope for leaks (which will be denied).  Republicans, hwo control the committee, only called him in to find out what he knows so they can counter it.  They might make the mistake of thinking they can kick him while he's down.  Democrats will give him every opening they can.

There's nothing left in this country's legislative branch that's remotely related to either truth or the good of the nation.