New evidence confirms Steve Bannon is knee-deep in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal
For some time now, even as Donald Trump’s Russia scandal has enveloped one Trump adviser after another, it seemed that Steve Bannon had managed to keep his fingerprints just far enough removed from the scandal to avoid taking the fall himself. But based on evidence that was unearthed as a result of Trump’s false accusations against Susan Rice, it’s now confirmed that Bannon was knee-deep in the scandal after all.
Donald Trump had falsely accused President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice of having committed a crime when she unmasked the names of Trump advisers in a classified report about foreign nationals. In reality she was simply doing her job. But because Trump pushed the issue, Rice ultimately testified about the matter before Congress. Her explanation is that Trump advisers were meeting with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, according to CNN (link). It’s since been revealed that the same prince tried to help Jared Kushner set up his secret backchannel with the Russian government. Here’s where Bannon comes in.
To the surprise of no one, Kushner and Michael Flynn attended the meeting with the UAE crown prince. What is noteworthy is that Steve Bannon also attended the meeting. The CNN story mentions Bannon’s attendance almost in passing, burying the lede. This means that Bannon was at the least a witness to the conspiracy between Kushner, Flynn, the crown prince, and the Russian government. This means Special Counsel Robert Mueller can haul in Bannon to testify. It also means that if the conspiracy was a felony, Mueller can threaten Bannon with misprision of a felony charges to force him to flip on Trump.
It’s long been widely suspected that Steve Bannon was pulling the strings behind the scenes in the Donald Trump campaign’s collusion with the Kremlin. His company Cambridge Analytica has long been suspected of using voter data stolen by Russian hackers to plot Trump’s campaign strategy. But these suspicions have been just that – suspicions. However, Bannon’s attendance at an actual Trump-Russia conspiracy meeting changes everything.
