Russia Update: Bannon Invokes 'Treason,' Trump Returns Fire

"He lost his mind," Trump says after reports of Steve Bannon's criticism [NPR Politics]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear NPR Politics newsletter reader, With a wave of developments in the Russia imbroglio over the last 24 hours, we wanted to bring you a comprehensive update from NPR national security editor Philip Ewing. Saturday morning, you will have your regular dispatch on the week in politics. Thank you for reading, Dana Farrington, NPR Politics editor --------------------------------------------------------------- Book: Did Trump Jr. introduce Russians to his father? Donald Trump Jr. may have taken up the Russian delegation that visited Trump Tower in June of 2016 to meet the then-candidate, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is quoted saying in a forthcoming new book. “The chance that Don Jr. did not walk [them] up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero,” Bannon said. Bannon “speculates” about the meeting in the new book Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff, according to [an advance read by David Smith in The Guardian](. It isn’t clear whether Bannon has direct knowledge of that meeting because it took place before he joined the campaign, but if his account is accurate, it’s another game-changer in the Russia imbroglio. Trump has denied he knew anything about Russia’s overtures to his campaign or the broader wave of “[active measures]( that Moscow waged against the United States. Trump Jr. and his brother-in-law Jared Kushner both have dismissed the importance of the meeting with the Russian delegation after they were forced to acknowledge it, and certainly made no mention about taking the people they hosted up to meet the candidate. So, as with so many other disputes in this story, it’s one person’s word against the president’s. But the fact that the charge comes from Trump’s own former top strategist, Bannon, means people took notice -- especially after what happened next: Trump fired back in a blistering statement: “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” he said. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.” And on it went — [more on all this from NPR’s Bill Chappell](. Among all the other headlines on Wednesday, one of the biggest on its own terms was the final, formal and high-profile break between Trump and his onetime political czar. OMG. Seriously, though — whoa. As NPR’s Domenico Montanaro [put it today]( “Yes, this is real life.” In short: cray, bro. --------------------------------------------------------------- So, where do we go from here? Trump’s statement did not address the substance of the comments Bannon reportedly makes in the new Wolff book — that Trump Jr. may have taken the Russians to see Trump, that Bannon thinks the meeting was “treasonous” and that Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is “all about [money laundering]( But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders later complained about the “number of falsehoods.” And she told reporters at a briefing Wednesday afternoon that, no, Trump never met with the Russians who visited Trump Jr. and other top aides. All the same, Wolff’s book is problematic for the White House: “You realise where this is going,” Bannon is quoted as saying, per the Guardian story. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f****** Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.” And, oh by the way, “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” said Bannon, per the Guardian’s Smith. The grain of salt: So … how much does Bannon actually know about any of this stuff and how much of it is just empty talk? That is difficult to say. He’s wrong about at least one thing in terms of Trump Jr., for example — friendly members of Congress have so far kept him out of the spotlight on his visits to Capitol Hill. On the other hand, Wolff says in the materials that accompany his book that he “conducted conversations and interviews over a period of 18 months with the president, most members of his senior staff, and many people to whom they in turn spoke.” That presumably includes Bannon, who, recall, remained a U.S. government employee until August and [reportedly continued talking to Trump]( after that. Wolff says the president encouraged his “semi-permanent” presence in the West Wing. But Sanders said Wednesday that Wolff “never actually sat down with the president” and only spoke with him once briefly when Trump was in office. She said that most of the meetings at the White House took place at Bannon’s request. --------------------------------------------------------------- Fusion GPS founders take aim at Hill Republicans The founders of the much-discussed political opposition research shop Fusion GPS fired back at members of Congress on Wednesday over what they called the fecklessness and cynicism of their attacks about [the infamous Russia dossier](. Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch [used a New York Times column to call]( for the House Intelligence Committee to release all 21 hours’ worth of the testimony they’ve given behind closed doors about the dossier and Russia. They accused Trump’s Republican allies of being too eager to dismiss serious evidence about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians who attacked the 2016 election. And they said the work in their dossier was not the genesis of the FBI’s Russia investigation, contrary to the attack line from House Judiciary Committee members such as Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. In fact, they say it “corroborates” other information the feds’ and others gleaned. NPR’s Scott Neuman [has more here](. Simpson and Fritsch are former Wall Street Journal reporters and, in classic journo fashion, they stood by their story: They [got an assignment]( and they assigned a correspondent: former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Steele did not know for whom he was ultimately working, Simpson and Fritsch say, and he did not pay for information from the sources in Russia he had cultivated over his career. He, Simpson and Fritsch were “shocked” by what came back, the authors claim, and that conviction was what prompted Steele, according to the former journalists, to want to tell American authorities about what he considered a crime then in commission — the Russian attack on the election. This is all a bit too rich, outside critics said on Wednesday. For one thing, Fusion GPS also represented the Russian government in its attempt to scale back U.S. anti-corruption sanctions, [as campaigner Bill Browder observed](. So it was helping the cause of the same Russian delegates who met with Trump Jr. et al. and may, per Bannon, also have met with Trump himself. For another, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he’s been trying for months to get Fusion GPS to talk in the open, on the record. Simpson and Fritsch have an open invitation to come before his committee, Grassley said. But as he pointed out, when Grassley tried to use a subpoena, Simpson invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself and never appeared. [More here from Politico’s Kyle Cheney](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Manafort sues Mueller, Rosenstein Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on Wednesday filed suit against the same Justice Department that is prosecuting him for alleged money laundering, NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports. Manafort complains that special counsel Robert Mueller has exceeded his mandate from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and that the Justice Department has empowered him in a way that was “arbitrary, capricious and not in accordance with the law.” Justice: Oh, come on. “The lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants,” a spokeswoman told Johnson. [NPR’s Ryan Lucas has more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Justice heavies visit speaker amid contempt threats Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Wednesday as the pressure builds over “bias” inside the Justice Department. Republicans on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees want more documents and information from the Justice Department about its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump counterintelligence probe — and Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has threatened to hold Rosenstein in contempt of Congress if they don’t get it. Ryan’s office confirmed the meeting took place but did not comment on it. Reporters peppered Rosenstein with questions as he left the Capitol, but he said nothing. And so the Russia imbroglio launches out of the gate for 2018. This saga is nowhere near over — [here’s a look at four other big storylines to watch](. [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( You received this message because you're subscribed to our Politics emails. | [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy]( | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002 [NPR]