Former Donald Trump campaign manager and Trump White House senior advisor Steve Bannon has been very busy meeting with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the House Intelligence Committee this week. NBC News has the details:
Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.
That’s a lot of time interviewing with the Special Counsel. He also finally appeared before the House Intelligence Committee after they were forced to a subpoena
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.”
Will Congress move forward with charges of contempt of Congress? Stay tuned.