Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Report: Mueller wants Bannon to testify in front of a grand jury on Trump-Russia

He’s already said some explosive things about the investigation.


By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com  Jan 16, 2018, 12:34pm EST

Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Trump, arrives at a House Intelligence Committee closed door meeting, on January 16, 2018 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Stephen Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, will now have to divulge what he knows about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The New York Times reports that special counsel Robert Mueller has formally subpoenaed Bannon to testify in front of a grand jury. It’s the first time we know Mueller has used a grand jury subpoena to get a top member of Trump’s inner circle to talk.

Bannon joined the Trump campaign as its chairman in August 2016 and then served as the Trump White House’s top strategist for one year. He would be in a good position to know if the Trump campaign purposefully worked with Russia to sway the 2016 presidential election. However, it’s unclear just how much he might know about other major issues Mueller is surely looking into, including Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey.

A source told the New York Times that it’s possible Mueller’s subpoena is a strategic move designed to convince Bannon to speak with Mueller’s team privately instead of testifying in front of a grand jury.

Regardless, Bannon is an important figure in Trump’s drive to the White House — and he may have interesting things to tell Mueller.

Bannon has already been outspoken about Trump-Russia
Bannon recently lost his job at the helm of Trump-friendly Breitbart in part because of his recent comments about Trump and Russia.

Bannon opined to Michael Wolff, author of the explosive book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, that Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 in search of dirt on Hillary Clinton was “treasonous.”

Read more
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/16/16897200/bannon-subpoena-nyt-trump-russia-mueller

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