The real reason Robert Mueller and Steve Bannon are putting on such a show together
The reported series of events surrounding Robert Mueller and Steve Bannon paints a timeline over the past week which, simply put, can’t all be true. It’s possible that multiple major news outlets are flat out getting their reporting wrong on this as it unfolds in real time. But there’s a far more likely explanation for all of these conflicting events: they’re all part of a song and dance being choreographed by Mueller and Bannon, at the expense of Donald Trump and the House Intelligence Committee.
Consider how utterly absurd the facts sound when you take everything that’s being reported by major reputable news outlets, and lay it out end to end: Mueller sent the FBI to deliver a grand jury subpoena to Bannon’s home last week. There was an angry exchange, after which Bannon informed the FBI that he had coincidentally hired an attorney just hours earlier. Bannon just happened to hire an attorney who also represents Reince Priebus and White House Counsel Don McGahn in the Russia scandal. That attorney then conspired with the White House to prevent Bannon from answering questions for the House Intel Committee. Mueller then decided he doesn’t need Bannon for the grand jury after all, and only needs to interview him one on one, and he’s perfectly welcome to bring the attorney who just yesterday was conspiring with Trump to obstruct justice. Bannon then agreed to fully cooperate with Mueller.
None of this makes sense, right? Why would Bannon go from taking such a hostile position toward Mueller and the FBI, to suddenly wanting to be Mueller’s star witness just a week later? Why would Bannon’s attorney conspire with Trump to prevent Bannon from saying anything to Congress? Why would Mueller sign off on that attorney continuing to represent Bannon? So let’s back up and talk about what’s really been going on here.
Let’s start with the most basic issue at play. Because they’re all being represented by the same attorney, by definition Bannon and Priebus and McGahn must all be taking the same position in the scandal. In other words, either they’re all planning to stonewall investigators and stay loyal to Trump, or they’re all cooperating witnesses. One of those two things must be true. If this is were indeed all a charade being orchestrated by Trump, Mueller would see right through it, and he would have told Bannon he has to bring a different attorney with him for the interview.
So unless you believe that Mueller is a buffoon who’s being somehow snowed by Trump, we’re left to conclude that Bannon, Priebus, McGahn are all on Team Mueller. Thus their shared attorney is also doing Mueller’s bidding on behalf of his clients. So why was the attorney conspiring with Trump to prevent Bannon from answering any questions for Congress yesterday? That had to have all been for show. Perhaps the attorney proposed the idea to Trump in order to keep Trump in the dark about what Bannon was really planning with Mueller. Perhaps it was an obstruction trap aimed at getting Trump to commit yet another prosecutable crime by going along with the plan to suppress Bannon’s testimony.
Either way, we now know that yesterday’s fireworks were all mere theater. If Robert Mueller had told Steve Bannon to bring a different lawyer with him for the interview, that would have been a sign that the lawyer – and thus Bannon and Priebus and McGahn – were all on Team Trump. When Mueller gave Bannon the green light to continue using the same lawyer, waiving any potential conflict of interest objections, it confirmed that these folks are indeed all on Team Mueller.
That only leaves us with the question of precisely when Steve Bannon decided to flip. When the FBI came to his door with a grand jury subpoena, did he panic and quickly decide that he needed to cooperate? Did he tell them that he just hired the Priebus-McGahn attorney because he had just decided to hire that attorney? Clearly he already knew Priebus had flipped – but then again, we were able to figure that out weeks ago, just by connecting the dots. Or did Bannon decide to flip the minute Trump ruined his life? If so, then the reports of Bannon and the FBI agents yelling at each other would have to have been a story they planted in order to make Trump even more confused about the manner in which he was being snowed.
