Steve Bannon is in violation of an ethics pledge which he signed in January, along with all the other Trump appointees. The pledge stated that Bannon would not participate in matters directly or substantially related to a former employer, among other things. Bannon has totally ignored his pledge and has been in close touch with Breitbart, and Breitbart admits it; even though he officially resigned as editor in August. Any distancing of Bannon from Breitbart is an illusion as Breitbart is still very much in Bannon's picture and Bannon is in Breitbart’s, despite any mere government ethics pledge. From The Daily Beast:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, “CREW,” described as a left-leaning watchdog group in Washington, asked White House counsel Don McGahn for his opinion and also if the White House had done anything to enforce the ethics pledge. McGahn said that, "If Bannon discussed White House matters with Breitbart, tried to drive favorable coverage of the White House with his former employer, and gave Breitbart favored access, that would be a serious problem and may have violated the Ethics Pledge he took when he joined the administration,” CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement on Thursday.
However, violating the Ethics Pledge is apparently not that big of a deal. There is no federal statute criminalizing violations of the Ethics Pledge. However, the Department of Justice ostensibly would have the ability to enforce the pledge by imposing civil fines, debarment from future government business or future government employment. With the Department of Justice being headed by Steve Bannon’s avowed mentor, Jeff Sessions, don’t hold your breath on this one. Corruption is more layered than a lasagna in the Trump administration. Read what Bannon said in last Sunday’s New York Times:
Bannon recalls blurting out to Sessions, “We have to run you for president.” Just two years earlier, in 2011, he made a similar pitch to Sarah Palin, after completing a documentary about her called “The Undefeated.” Palin demurred. She was enjoying her life of celebrity and wealth, she had done little to immerse herself in policy minutiae and she was no doubt unsettled by Bannon’s warning that she stood little chance of defeating Obama.
Now he delivered a similar message to Sessions. “Look, you’re not going to win,” he recalls saying. “But you can get the Republican nomination. And once you control the apparatus, you can make fundamental changes. Trade is No.100 on the party’s list. You can make it No.1. Immigration is No.10. We can make it No.2.” Acknowledging that the drawling Alabama senator lacked Palin’s charisma, Bannon said, “You’ll be the anti-candidate.”
Bannon has described Jeff Sessions, aka “anti-candidate,” as his “mentor,” presumably up there with Dick Cheney, Darth Vadar and Satan, Bannon’s other declared role models. The Justice Department was the biggest boon that Steve Bannon could conceive of as consolation prize if the crown of Republican nomination wasn’t winnable, so that’s the one that Sessions got.
Common sense dictates that with Jeff Sessions in charge of Justice, Justice is not likely to bother Steve Bannon with a picayune ethics pledge violation. It’s just one more rock on the pile and so far Bannon has managed to blow past every charge of misconduct levelled against him with total impunity. Most recently the Washington Post and many other outlets reported on Bannon's registering to vote in more than one state. An investigation was subsequently started in Dade County Florida. Unfortunately, no criminal charges will be filed by them. That case fell apart last week, according to The Miami Herald.
Investigators were looking at a narrow question: whether Bannon lied to the elections department about his residency when he twice filed to be a voter in Miami-Dade.
Prosecutors ultimately concluded that the evidence “tends to indicate” that Bannon “did not intend to or actually reside in Miami-Dade County” between 2014 and 2016. But there was enough contradictory evidence — including Bannon calling the Grove property “my house” in an email to a fellow political operative — to create “reasonable doubt” before a jury.
So there you have it. The evidence tends to indicate guilt but Bannon is sliding by. This is nothing, however, to the charge before that one, which was his flagrant violation of campaign laws, when he was paid by a superPAC fund run by the Mercers. The Democratic Coalition reported Bannon to the FBI in October and that one looked like a slam dunk at the time.
“Over the course of the Trump campaign, Bannon was paid $950,090 by pro-Trump Super PAC, Make America Number 1, through his company Glittering Steel LLC, both before and after Bannon assumed his role as campaign CEO. [...]
According to federal campaign finance law, it is illegal for Super PACs to coordinate operations with campaigns. Additionally, there is a 120-day “cooling off” period for when Super PAC employees leave to work on the campaign their PAC was supporting to avoid any potential coordination. Steve Bannon was paid by Make America Number 1 on August 8, 2016, and then became Trump campaign CEO on August 17, 2016, directly violating the 120-day cooling off period. Additionally, Bannon was paid by the PAC after he became campaign CEO, which likely means there was coordination." www.dailykos.com/…
Again, so much for direct violations and slam dunk. In the pre-Trump era, this kind of a paper trail would finish a White House advisor. In this case, Bannon continues to glide in the aura of “the Trump effect,” a kind of glow that surrounds and insulates Republican malefactors from bearing the consequences of their actions. It’s a kind of reverse-karma, no matter what they do there is no check to pick up.
Regarding the superPAC malfeasance, the FBI did nothing with the complaint. It was filed in late October, which was before we knew what James Comey was all about. It has been said that Ronald Reagan was Teflon. In the non-stick department, Bannon makes Reagan look like a pale amateur. So far Bannon has eluded criminal charges and continued on his self willed spree to destroy government as we know it. I guess that we can only hope that the precept "the bigger they come the harder they fall," will eventually apply to Bannon; and before he does too much damage.