Steve Bannon’s privilege scheme isn’t going to work – and it gives away how far gone Donald Trump is
I don’t know what Steve Bannon is trying to do with this executive privilege letter, and neither does he. It’s a last ditch stunt from a guy who’s cornered. It has zero chance of somehow magically saving him. He’s a two bit con man, not some evil wizard with magical powers.
Bannon’s criminal trial for contempt is just days from now. If he truly wants to give cooperative testimony to the January 6th Committee in order to get the charges dropped, the committee will gladly take his testimony. But it’ll certainly poke and prod him first in order to determine whether this is just a stunt, and if so, it’ll tell him to go pound sand. The committee has shown it’s savvy, not naive, and it won’t be outsmarted by whatever Bannon is trying to do.
The real story here is that when Steve Bannon asked Donald Trump to sign a letter waiving this imaginary executive privilege, Trump obliged – even though Trump’s handlers leaked the whole thing to the media in a last ditch effort to stop Trump from doing it.
Bannon could easily use this letter as an excuse to testify against Trump, to the committee and the DOJ, in a way that would truly help finish Trump off. Bannon surely told Trump the letter is for some other scheme that’ll benefit them both. But how could Trump simply take a con artist like Bannon at his word on this? Besides, Trump hates Bannon.
Trump is an empty suit at this point. He’s not scheming, people are scheming him. And he’s just passively letting them. Of course if you’ve listened to Trump’s occasional public remarks of late, you already know how far gone he is. He presents in public as at least 50% senile. Now his passivity toward Bannon’s latest scheme suggests he really is just letting the people around him steamroll him.
