Trump for president campaign, Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn both testified on the Russia Scandal, and like steve bannon yesterday, Corey Lewandowski, reportedly refused to answer some of the committees questions today. Thats part of how we know that something really important and something really different is going on when it comes to steve bannon and the Mueller Investigation and the Russia Scandal overall. Yesterday, the big news we were trying to sort out last night is the fact that Steve Ban Nonon w into that house Intelligence Committee, refused to answer questions and was hit with a subpoena to try to compel him to answer their questions. Thats an unusual occurrence, and part of the reason we know how unusual that is is because Corey Lewandowski walked into that same committee. He also apparently refused to answer their questions, but they didnt subpoena him. There wasnt word that the committee demanded to have him back in to ask him the questions in a harsher tone, like previous officials who have refused to answer questions for a variety of reasons, yes, there were complaints from the democrats on the committee, but the republicans didnt seem technically bothered. Why was steve bannon treated so differently. A lot of people refused to answer questions. Hes the only one that got subpoenaed by the committee. Something with steve bannon is very different than the way Everybody Else is being treated in this scandal. Everybody in trumps orbit, from Trump Campaign workers to Trump Administration officials both current and former. We know a great long list of them who have been brought in to speak to Robert Mueller and his investigators in a voluntary context. We now know that steve bannon was never asked to come in and meet with Robert Mueller in a voluntary context, before he was
hit with a subpoena from the mueller office. The subpoena that was first reported yesterday, a subpoena to bannon that he must come in and testify before a grand jury. Bannon was treated very differently by Robert Mueller than Everybody Else in the Trump Campaign. Bannon was also treated very differently by congress. Just in that house Intelligence Committee. Attorney general Jeff Sessions was interviewed Behind Closed Doors and said he wanted to not answer their questions on the basis that the president may some day want to exert Executive Privilege to stop him from giving that testimony in the future. That was a strange argument from the attorney general. Corey lewandowski hasnt given any reason. When the president s son, donald jr. Refused to answer questions on the basis of attorney client
privilege. Neither donald jr. Nor donald senior is an attorney, and which one of you is the client . But in all of those instances, the republicanled committees in congress, the Republicanled Intelligence Committee said no problem with those bull pucky, i mean dubious, even laughbling attempts to avoid Answering Questions to assert some pseudo legal rationale for not answering the committees questions. Everybody else has weaseled out of Answering Questions and they have not cared at all. Democrats have complained, republicans have mott cared. Then Steve Ban Nonon shows up, tries the same thing, boom, heres your subpoena. Why is he being treated so differently . I think weve figured it out. Last july, july 25th. Paul manafort, surprise, appeared on capitol hill, and his spokesman announced that Paul Manafort, surprise, had
just testified to the Intelligence Committee on the russia matter. Nobody had known that was going to happen before manafort turned up and his spokesman sprung it on everybody. It had been kept secret. That was july 25th. Well, that night after midnight, on the 26th, Paul Manafort got his house raided in the predawn hours. Taking pictures of the labels of his suits and all that stuff. He had been in communication, handing over documents, he and his lawyers thought they were in a constructive or voluntary dialog with Robert Muellers office. That did not extend to the Special Counsels office knowing that when he turned up out of
the blue, surprise, it appears that the Special Counsels office obtained their noknock Search Warrant for Paul Manaforts office that day and executed it that night. His congressional testimony, his surprise congressional testimony and that raid on his house that night were apparently not unconnected events. After Paul Manafort appeared before the senate Intelligence Committee that day, surprising the Robert Mueller team, Washington Post reported that was just the start of it. Manafort and his lawyers expected to continue to cooperate with the Intelligence Committees investigation. Quote, manaforts lawyers have agreed to make him available to speak with Senate Committee staffers in the future to discuss other issues. Manafort turns over notes from trump tower meeting with russian lawyer. So he surprised everybody by testifying once, he handed over documents, he was continuing to give them stuff, continuing to meet with them. He was scheduled to speak to a whole Different Committee the
following day, but you know what . None of that happened. Those further rounds of testimony, Those Further T documents did not happen, because in a dramatic fashion in a predawn raid on his home, Robert Mueller and the Special Counsel jumped in there, that fbi raid with its speed, its swarm of officers, noknock provisions, all that drama, that may have been because of a fear that mr. Manafort would destroy some special information the Special Counsel wanted but also because mr. Manafort was starting to give that evidence away to congress. Paul manafort, eventually, was charged with a dozen felonies in october. So we have to look at the Special Counsels evidence they put together. Given the seriousness of the charges, that the charges came alongside another Trump Campaign official, equal number of Felony Charges and two other Trump Campaign officials pleading
guilty to felonies, it now seems clear in hindsight that the Special Counsels office may not have found it helpful in their inquiries had all the evidence they collected from Paul Manafort been spread all over capitol hill, possibly even provided to the white house by the president s republican allies in congress. Maybe even leaked to the public. Until the Special Counsel wraps up its investigation, we wont know if other evidence collected from manafort ended up being in another case against another person who may be charged in this roigs investigation, but Robert Muellers investigation is very obviously going full steam. Theyve got multiple charges against two senior Campaign Officials, guilty pleas and Cooperation Agreements from two other officials. They obtained a Grand Jury Subpoena and are still actively working with a grand jury. Alongside their ongoing negotiations to get the president himself interviewed by muellers prosecutors. I just have to say, in an alternate universe on earth one where things retain their natural size and shape, it is a huge freaking deal that the National Security adviser is quietly cooperating with the Special Counsel and has been for months, the Special Counsel that has been working with the grand jury which has already handed down dozens of accounts against the president s top officials. Thats happening right now, that mike flynn cooperation. While him and at least one more cooperating witness are looming over this presidency, think about the president s defense team and what they need to strategize. President s defense obviously needs all the yintel they can gt on what they are up against. What mueller has, what they need to mitigate or investigate themselves. To the extent that the evidence and the testimony is going to come from other white house officials, other Trump Campaignofficials, you know, a lot of those folks are people who the white house has direct access to. Theres no question for example that the white house is going to have ongoing access to and communications with people like hope hicks or Jared Kushner or donald trump jr. , people like that are not going to tell investigators anything thats going to surprise the white house, because those folks are in the white house every day. But then theres steve bannon. Who ran the president s campaign. Hes in a position to know a lot of really highlevel Insider Information about a number of things we believe the Mueller Investigation is looking at. The white house doesnt know that what Steve Bannons going to say. They dont necessarily know what he knows, what hes inclined to talk about, what he would like to talk about. Former white house chief strategist steve bannon testified yesterday. Didnt answer a lot of questions. Refused to answer some before the Intelligence Committee. Steve has had very little contact with the white house since he left. I know steve a little bit. Not very well. He left the white house and has certainly never returned to the white house, with the exception of a few phone calls here and there, very, very little contact with the white house. And i certainly have never spoke to him since he left. Thats white house Chief Of Staff john kelly speaking with brett baier. Whos telling investigators what about the russia matter. For all the other senior and even semisenior people who are in a position to know a lot of what happened during the campaign and the transis, ttion. The white house has access to all those people. Not steve bannon, not anymore, especially not now after the president denounced him publicly and fragrantly and repeated limit steve bannon has nothing
to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired he not only lost his job he lost his mind. He had very little to do with our historic victory. He doesnt represent our base. He represents himself. He wants to make himself seem far more important than he really is. Steve was rarely in a one on one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence. The president threatened a civil lawsuit against steve bannon after Michael Wolffs book came out. Then the president , after threatening to sue him gave mr. Bannon a derogatory nickname, sloppy steve has been dumped like a dog. I dont think the president understands dogs. The president kept pouring it on. Said publicly that steve bannon cried. He cried when he got fired from the white house and begged for his job. And the White House Press sent from the White House Briefing room said bannons employer should consider firing him. And then in fact, bright bart. Com did fire mr. Bannon. And his benefactors publicly disparaged him and cut him off at what seemed to be the insistent of the white house. And then he got a subpoena to talk to Robert Mueller, which is good timing in terms of getting a guy at a time when hes most inclined to talk, right . But he also got that subpoena right before bannon was summoned to go to capitol hill. Like Everybody Else to tell tales, the white house must be very eager to know what bannon has to say. But unlike every other senior person who is in that kind of position, or even charged with a crime, the white house is probably not in a position to find that stuff out on the downlow from steve bannon, because theyre not talking with him. Theyre fighting him tooth and nail. Hes not going to tell them
anything. I mean, plausibly. This time last night, we had no idea why bannon was getting subpoenaed twice, once bit Mueller Investigation and once Behind Closed Doors at the Intelligence Committee, well, theyre trying to force him to talk. Nbc news reports tonight that the people directly involved are operating on a belief that Steve Bannons subpoena to testify to a grand jury and the subpoena to testify in congress are not unrelated matters. Theyre operating on the belief that the mueller subpoena to steve bannon was designed essentially to preserve for mueller the first crack at bannons testimony on the Russia Scandal. What happened last night with bannon being in that congressional commity for ten hours was not the republicans suddenly being outraged that a witness was not being forthcoming with them about the stru Trump Administration. They havent cared about any other witness. What happened last night with
steve ban none non in there for hours was not a principled fight about how much they could block by exerting Executive Privilege. The very idea of that is absurd. Steve bannon and the white House Counsel have the same lawyer. The lawyers picking up his phone, i represent the white house, tell bannon he cant talk. Then he moves the phone to the other ear, i represent steve bannon, i say not to talk. Its the same lawyer. There was no principled fight going on between two sides over Executive Privilege. If so, the same lawyer would not be representing both of those entities. And the iran contra investigation, they gave immunity to some involved in that and it ended up screwing up the prosecution. In this investigation, it is led by a trump Transition Member who has been openly working with the white house to advance the president s defense on the russia investigation. That kind of thing has consequences. It appears that the mueller subpoena is at least believed by people involved in this to have been designed to stop steve bannon from talking to congress so his evidence goes to mueller instead, to preserve and present his evidence for the criminal part of this investigation. Right now the consequences of there being trump partisans leading at least some of the congressional investigations into the russia matter, the consequence of that right now, what it appears to mean about this whole steve bannon mission goss theyre jumping in to make Sure Congress Doesnt Mess Up what mueller is doing. Thats whats going on. And now is the part where i look
soberly at the camera and intone with fake gravitas, thats weird. Let your inner light loose with one a day womens. A complete multivitamin specially formulated with key Nutrients Plus vitamin d for bone health support. Your one a day is showing. Somesend you and your family overwhelrunning. Y can. Introducing febreze one for fabric and air. No aerosols. No dyes. No heavy perfumes. It cleans away odors for a pure light freshness. So you can spray and stay. Febreze one, breathe happy. Executive branch official today was fully willing to answer all these questions, it does tell us the white house is treating steve bannon differently than others who served in the administration. And this committee is treating witnesses differently than they treated mr. Bannon. Congressman adam schiff today, the top democrat on the Intelligence Committee in the house where they have tried to get answers this week from three figures in the orbit of the president , Current White House deputy Chief Of StaffRick Dearborn who were told did answer questions today. Corey lewandowski who showed up and said apparently, maybe hell answer questions sometime later a