Steve Bannon was reportedly interviewed by Robert Mueller over multiple days https://t.co/PTPjxQQaqy
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 15, 2018
Guys. You see that it's not a subpoena, right. It's an interview. Meaning not compelled. FLIPPED. https://t.co/Su5PZIu4Xn
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) February 15, 2018
Anybody less prone to hyperbole want to extrapolate here? From the Washington Post:
House Republican leaders are weighing “further steps” to force former top White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon to answer investigators’ questions in their probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election — including potentially declaring him in contempt of Congress — after a Thursday interview they called “frustrating.”
Bannon came to speak with the House Intelligence Committee under a subpoena the panel issued on the spot last month, when he refused to answer questions related to the transition period and his tenure in the White House. The interview came after Bannon met with investigators in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe on Monday and Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the sessions…
The intelligence panel’s probe is not supposed to overlap with the objectives of Mueller’s investigation, but several events and people are common to both efforts. Bannon has not yet met with the Senate Intelligence Committee in its probe of Russian meddling in the election.
But in the House, Republicans and Democrats alike have been angered by Bannon’s repeated attempts to dismiss questions based on a claim to executive privilege that Trump never formally invoked, even when served with a subpoena.
Intelligence Committee member K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.) said Thursday that he, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and a few others would decide whether to accept Bannon’s legal arguments against answering the panel’s questions or take punitive measures such as declaring him in contempt. The decision-makers will not include panel chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Conaway said…
Republican leaders are not expected to decide on a course of action until late February, after they return to Washington following a one-week recess, he said.
Schiff, however, demanded that the committee move to hold Bannon in contempt as soon as possible.
“I think contempt is the only road left open to us,” the Democrat said…
It sure sounds like the Repubs suspect Bannon is no longer loyal to La Familia GOP — but they don’t wanna risk raising his profile, either, just in case. And Rep. Schiff is needling them.
Then there’s this, per Vox:
… Rick Gates — Paul Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, and a 2016 Trump campaign staffer — is “finalizing” a plea deal in which he’d cooperate with the Mueller investigation, CNN’s Katelyn Polantz and Sara Murray report. Gates has been in negotiations with Mueller’s team about cooperating for over a month, their report says, citing sources familiar with the case.
Back in October, Mueller’s team indicted Gates and Manafort on a combined 12 counts that mostly focused on alleged money laundering, failure to disclose financial assets, and false statements regarding their work for the government of Ukraine and a Russia-affiliated Ukrainian political party — matters that didn’t have anything specific to do with Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. (Both pleaded not guilty.)
But apparently, Mueller didn’t intend to stop there. The special counsel’s team had prepared superseding indictments that would add to or replace the original charges against both Manafort and Gates, per an earlier CNN report. Facing an expensive legal defense with no end in sight, Gates signed a new lawyer who has been working on cutting him a plea deal.
The biggest question, though, is whether Gates’s possible flip is mainly bad news for Paul Manafort concerning those lobbying and money laundering charges … or whether it would have even bigger implications for the investigation into Russian interference as a whole, and into President Trump specifically…
We’ve all been trained by years of watching/reading police procedurals: First to flip gets best terms. Presumably Gates and Bannon are just as aware of this truism as the rest of us.
Russiagate Open Thread: First Bannon, Then Gates? Or the Other Way Around?Post + Comments (246)