In a new interview on Thursday, former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon once again refused to answer the House Intelligence Committee’s questions and said that he can only answer questions that are pre-approved by the White House.
The interview lasted for three hours and the lawmakers said that during that time Bannon refused to answer any questions connected with his time working for President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.
“The only questions he would answer were questions that had been scripted, literally scripted, for him by the White House. A set of 25 questions that had been written out for him to which the answer to each must be ‘no,'” said the panel’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff.
According to The Hill, Bannon invoked executive privilege when asked questions that extended beyond his list, an assertion the committee does not believe he has the grounds to make.
“There is no plausible claim of privilege that could apply to those circumstances,” Schiff added. “The breadth of that claim is breathtaking and insupportable, and indeed, at times, it was laughable.”
Meanwhile, Texas Representative Mike Conaway, who is the senior Republican leading the probe into Russian election interference, said that the committee was examining what can be done to compel the former chief strategist to provide answers.
“He did not answer all the questions we’d like answered so there is frustration among the committee members with respect to that,” Conaway said. “We have further steps to take and we will be taking those.”
Later, Conaway was asked whether the committee plans to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress, on which he answered that the decision extends to others like Speaker Paul Ryan.
“Contempt is a big deal, and I don’t have unilateral control over that conversation,” he said.
However, Schiff directly called for Bannon to be held in contempt of Congress.
“In terms of next steps I think the next steps for the Congress to take is to initiate contempt proceedings,” Schiff said, adding that Bannon was given a chance to say why he should not be held in contempt.
“We cannot permit a situation where the White House is allowed to script self-serving and misleading questions and provide it to a witness and effectively coach his testimony in a very narrow and misleading way,” he said.
The Hill reported that the White House sent a letter to the committee Wednesday evening before making its case as to why Trump’s transition period falls under the administration’s authority to assert executive privilege.
Be the first to comment