The real story behind Steve Bannon’s berserk day of Trump-Russia subpoenas and testimony

| 9:47 pm EST January 16, 2018
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Steve Bannon spent nearly ten hours testifying before the House Intelligence Committee today, and he spent much of that time not answering questions. At various points the committee called the White House in the hope of getting Bannon to answer additional questions, and kept getting rebuffed. While Bannon was sitting there, the committee subpoenaed him on the spot In amongst all that chaos, it was revealed today that Robert Mueller subpoenaed Bannon a week ago. This series of events is utterly berserk, but these pieces do potentially fit together in a cohesive manner.

Let’s start with what we already know. The House Intel Committee is highly compromised. The Republicans on the committee have been running a sham Trump-Russia investigation aimed at “clearing” Trump, and thus muddying the waters in the court of public opinion, before other House and Senate committees and Mueller can get to the real truth. They hauled in Bannon today to get a preview of what Bannon might tell Mueller, so they could then share that information with Trump for strategic reasons.

This would explain why Bannon refused to answer so many questions today. But it sounds a lot like Trump’s White House had Bannon under some kind of partial gag order today. That’s not even a real thing in a legal sense, yet Bannon was willing to go along with it. Moreover, this back-and-forth between Team Bannon and Team Trump today was carried out by Bannon’s attorney. So is that attorney on Team Trump? No, not possible. This is the same attorney who represents Reince Priebus, who based on widespread prior reporting, is very clearly cooperating with Robert Mueller.

So let’s step back and take another look at this. Let’s say that Steve Bannon has already cut a deal with Mueller. Let’s further say that, once the House Intel Committee tried to quickly haul in Bannon in order to get a preview of his Mueller testimony, Bannon and his attorney and Mueller decided to put on a show. Bannon’s attorney told Trump that Bannon would agree to any limitations Trump wanted to place on Bannon’s testimony. Now Trump has been lulled into believing Bannon is afraid of him, even as Bannon prepares to spill his guts to Mueller in exchange for a deal.

Robert Mueller sent a subpoena to Steve Bannon last week, and then leaked word of it to the media today, in order to keep up the appearance that Bannon wasn’t cooperating. After all, why would anyone be subpoenaed if they’re already cooperating?

Keep in mind that today is the only time the Trump-aligned Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have tried to force one of Trump’s people to spill their guts about the Russia scandal. Donald Trump is desperate to know what Bannon is going to tell Mueller. Bannon and Mueller both saw this coming, so they orchestrated the entire thing for the sake of leaving Trump in the dark. That’s a complex theory, but it’s the closest we’re going to come to fitting these disparate pieces together today in a logical fashion.