Steve Bannon’s revenge against Donald Trump
Steve Bannon, who hired the same lawyer as former Trump administration figures (Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Don McGahn) who have been chatting it up with investigators and/or reporters, was not only a major reason Trump pulled of his big 2016 coup, but also the chattiest staffer in Michael Wolff’s fiery (but not entirely true) book, Fire and Fury.
The gossipy tell-all flared into the American consciousness thirteen months ago because Steve Bannon wouldn’t shut up. Without Bannon, there would be no book, at least not a best-seller. And while Wolff has a deserved reputation for letting his imagination run free, Bannon’s quotes went undisputed. The most acidic musings were spit at “Jarvanka,” the team of Jared Kushner and Ivanka, as Bannon detailed the power battles waged between the godforsaken entities.
Among Bannon’s angry emissions, a few things stand out. First, Bannon is a firestarter, not a loyalist. He burned every bridge to Trump, clashed egos with him and got brutally dumped, lost his billionaire backing and his media megaphone, then swiftly took his brand of right-wing hatred to Europe in a horrifyingly successful reboot. All that, and it’s believed he still advises Trump. He certainly doesn’t have anything good to say about Kushner, and in light of the huge revelations about Qatar’s help with Kushner’s $1.8 billion Manhattan real estate bungle and Saudi nuclear power ties now being investigated in the House, Trump is probably getting a big dose of “throw him to the wolves.”
That may matter more than what he’s giving to investigators, because there is no indication that he has anything material on Kushner. But he’s valuable either way. Driving a wedge between Trump and Kushner only gets easier as Kushner’s bumbling amorality becomes more of a drag on an embattled administration. And while Bannon may not have direct evidence of Kushner’s apparent willingness to put American interests at risk to save himself, he’ll give everything he has to avoid personal destruction (again).
Bannon knows how the sausage is made, and likely devoted a lot of time and energy to digging up dirt on Kushner and his contacts while he was around. That’s always valuable to someone like Mueller; and the stakes are presumably higher now, considering the most recent and highly disturbing Qatar and Saudi Arabia revelations – the ones that don’t involve murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Steve Bannon is vile, but he’s shrewd and vindictive. If he can help bring Kushner down while taking minimal shrapnel, he will. And Bannon won’t particularly care if he sandbags his old boss in the process as long as he survives to destroy another country.
Chuck is a former community reporter, columnist, and Army veteran