Well, this is interesting. "Sloppy" Steve Bannon reportedly met with Special Counsel Bob Mueller for over 20 hours just this week alone, according to an NBC News report. Bannon was one of Donald Trump's chief strategists during the election and also worked in the White House as an "adviser" prior to being ousted late last year, so he knows where all the skeletons are.
Why does this matter? Well, 20 hours is a LONG time. I mean, shockingly long. They must have covered a ton of topics. NBC reports that following his Mueller interviews, Bannon returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with the House Intelligence Committee to answer more questions. Bannon had previously refused to answer questions, but apparently he decided to return and answered about two dozen questions today.
Just as a reminder, on January 16th Bannon refused to answer questions, so a subpoena was issued DURING the interview. Bannon still refused to answer questions. The White House eventually "negotiated" what questions could be answered, citing executive privilege.
(Note to Trumpers: You cannot cite executive privilege for events that occurred during the campaign or transition or after he left the White House)
Bannon's continued refusal to answer questions today led to lawmakers stating that he may be held in contempt of Congress.
Rep. Adam Schiff said, “The only questions he would answer were questions that had been scripted, literally scripted for him by the White House. 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.”
At the end of the day, answering questions for Mueller is exponentially more important, and based on the 20 hours of interview time, it seems he DID answer those.
