Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon reportedly told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday he spoke with former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and former spokesman for President Trump’s outside legal team Mark Corallo about the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Trump Jr. attended with a Russian lawyer.
Four sources told Axios that Bannon mentioned his discussions with the three during his closed-door hearing with lawmakers. Bannon avoided answering questions from the committee about his time working for the White House, as well as the presidential transition before Trump’s inauguration.
The Trump Tower meeting has been one of the key points of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Mueller’s team has also focused on a statement that was drafted aboard Air Force One last year about the meeting Trump Jr. attended with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer.
During Bannon’s appearance before the lawmakers, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Bannon about his comments about the Trump Tower meeting, which he called “treasonous.”
Bannon’s comments were revealed in a new tell-all book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
The South Carolina Republican pressed Bannon on whether it would be treasonous for someone to reach out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to ask about Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails, and Bannon said it would be in poor judgment for someone to do so.
Gowdy then showed Bannon emails Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign’s data firm, sent discussing contacts with Assange.
According to Axios, Bannon criticized the congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the GOP lawmakers leading them, and he said it was part of an “establishment” plan to “nullify” the results of the presidential election.
Gowdy asked who Bannon was referring to when he said the “establishment." Bannon said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Bannon joined the Trump campaign as its chief executive in August 2016 and went on to work in the White House as chief strategist. He left that post, though, in August 2017.
