Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower meeting was 'treasonous'

Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower meeting was 'treasonous'

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 9:33 AM ET, Wed January 3, 2018

(CNN)Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton "treasonous," according to a new book obtained by The Guardian.

The book, "Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff, is based on hundreds of interviews, including ones with President Donald Trump and his inner circle. According to the Guardian, Bannon told Wolff that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia is centered on money laundering.

Referring to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Bannon reportedly told Wolff: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."

"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."

The White House declined to comment Wednesday about Bannon's reported assertion.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politi...ury/index.html

Why would you call the FBI because someone, whether it's a Russian lawyer, Russian government, or anyone else claims during a political campaign they have dirt on Hillary Clinton?

And since when is it "unpatriotic" or "treasonous" to meet with someone who claims they have dirt on a political opponent?

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Originally Posted by Judy

Why would you call the FBI because someone, whether it's a Russian lawyer, Russian government, or anyone else claims during a political campaign they have dirt on Hillary Clinton?

And since when is it "unpatriotic" or "treasonous" to meet with someone who claims they have dirt on a political opponent?

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Come on now. While having such a discussion with Joe Blow American citizen working at the local A&P store wouldn't be an issue, I can see how having the discussion with a possible representative of a foreign government in the hopes of shaping a presidential campaign could have huge implications.

Steve Bannon is 100% right about Russia and the Trump campaign

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 12:02 PM ET, Wed January 3, 2018

Washington (CNN) In a new book detailing the wild first year of Donald Trump's presidency, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is quoted blasting top operatives in the 2016 campaign for their naivete and idiocy in their dealings with the Russians.

He's absolutely right.

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Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower meeting was 'treasonous'


Of the July 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and several Russians -- in which dirt on Hillary Clinton had been promised to the campaign -- Bannon tells author Michael Wolff, according to the Guardian, which obtained an early copy of the book:

"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."
Correct!

The idea that a meeting between the three top officials in the Trump campaign and a handful of people with Russian ties could or should be held in Trump Tower is, on its face, ludicrous. And, that doesn't even get into the fact that the reason (or a reason) that the meeting even happened in the first place was that Don Jr. had been promised dirt on Clinton by Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Russian pop star Emin Alagarov, whose father is a business tycoon close to the Russian government.

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Whether or not anything actually happened -- Don Jr. insists the meeting was brief and uneventful -- the sheer appearance that such a gathering conveys is a very bad one. Particularly when you consider that two former Trump aides have already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

According to the Guardian:
"Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up 'in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people'. Any information, he said, could then be 'dump[ed] ... down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication.' You never see it, you never know it, because you don't need to ... But that's the brain trust that they had."

This is what is known as plausible deniability. As in, senior leadership in any campaign never get too close to the truly explosive (or potentially explosive) material that is peddled in the dark channels of opposition research so that -- if ever it actually blows up -- they can honestly say they never knew about it.

What Bannon nails in the last line of his quote above is the fact that the "brain trust" of the Trump campaign simply wasn't terribly well versed in the ways that modern campaigns operate. Don Jr. and Kushner are family; neither man had ever been involved in politics at any sort of national level prior to this campaign. Manafort hadn't run -- or really been involved at a high level with -- a campaign in this country in decades.

These were not, in short, the best of the best. Why? Because no one thought Trump had a shot in hell of winning. And, even when it became clear by the spring of 2016 that he actually might win -- that's when Manafort signed on -- no one who had run a previous campaign at the national level in the last decade was willing to touch the radioactive Trump.

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How Trump has disparaged the Russia investigation


There were undoubtedly benefits to the lack of knowledge Trump and his inner circle had about the way things were done in campaigns. They ran a different campaign because they didn't know what a normal campaign looked like.

But, this Trump Tower meeting is the other side of that coin. It was a colossally bad decision -- even if nothing at all happened in it.
Say what you will about Steve Bannon -- and you can say a lot -- but he gets that. And he gets -- better than anyone in the White House apparently does -- what is headed their way.

"They're sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five," he told Wolff.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politi...sis/index.html

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Originally Posted by MW

Come on now. While having such a discussion with Joe Blow American citizen working at the local A&P store wouldn't be an issue, I can see how having the discussion with a possible representative of a foreign government in the hopes of shaping a presidential campaign could have huge implications.

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Sure, that's why they had the meeting, what's "treasonous" about that? And what does the FBI have to do with it?

I see what Bannon's doing. He made that up to try to revive a hurricane he probably started that fizzled. It won't work, he doesn't know who or what he's dealing with. You hate to see someone like that implode over a job. "SAD!"

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Originally Posted by Judy

I see what Bannon's doing. He made that up to try to revive a hurricane he probably started that fizzled. It won't work, he doesn't know who or what he's dealing with. You hate to see someone like that implode over a job. "SAD!"

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Wish I had the skill of knowing what folks are thinking ........ or a crystal ball. :)

Yes, well, you two run with Bannon and see how far you get our country. He failed on Obamacare. He failed in his Senate politicking. And now he's failed big time with his phony books and journalism. He's cooked in my opinion and marked done in my book.

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Originally Posted by Judy

Yes, well, you two run with Bannon and see how far you get our country. He failed on Obamacare. He failed in his Senate politicking. And now he's failed big time with his phony books and journalism. He's cooked in my opinion and marked done in my book.

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Geez, I can't believe you're buying in with the "Bannon is our enemy" crowd. Oh, and your implication that Bannon was responsible for the failure of repealing Obamacare is beyond ridiculous!

Folks that have been convinced by Trump that he is their saviour and will deliver them to the promise land are probably going to be disappointed. Not saying he won't win any battles for us, but I am saying the possibility of him folding on issues important to us is real. We must stay on Trump every step of the way if we want him to make us winners.

You go on believing as you wish and I'll do the same. However, I'm fairly certain that losing Bannon's influence in the White House was a big loss for our cause. I'm also convinced Trump's downplaying of Bannon's influence on his campaign is a lie Trump is spouting to simply make himself feel more important than he already thinks he is (if that's even possible). Most of us see Trump for exactly what he is where character is concerned, however, we do realize we must do everything we can to use him as a tool to further our cause.

I think our cause is doing very well under this President. In fact, it was after Bannon left that Trump ended DACA and Trump figured out his LONG LONG LIST of demands for the eternally DUMB DACA DEAL Mark Krikorian and Ira Felhman proposed to him, again after Bannon left. Bannon was okay right up to the point where he said the US military can't defeat North Korea, decided to find himself by involving himself in a primary election in Alabama that cost Republicans a Senate seat, and accused Don Jr of being a traitor.

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Originally Posted by Judy

I think our cause is doing very well under this President. In fact, it was after Bannon left that Trump ended DACA and Trump figured out his LONG LONG LIST of demands for the eternally DUMB DACA DEAL Mark Krikorian and Ira Felhman proposed to him, again after Bannon left. Bannon was okay right up to the point where he said the US military can't defeat North Korea, decided to find himself by involving himself in a primary election in Alabama that cost Republicans a Senate seat, and accused Don Jr of being a traitor.

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In my book, Trump gets absolutely no credit for ending DACA! If it was up to him, we would probably still have it. He should have kept his original promise to end DACA when he moved into the White House!

Those primarily responsible for the ending of DACA (not really ended until March) was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton/his lawsuit partners and AG Jeff Sessions who told Trump he wouldn't support DACA in court.

As for Bannon costing us the Alabama Republican seat. That is pure fantasy! Bannon gets credit for doing everything he could to help Moore acquire that seat. If you want to blame someone, blame the likes of Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Shelby, and the other so-called conservative elitist. Oh, and Trump's original support of Luther Strange didn't help matters any.

I don't know if Don Jr is a traitor, but he is at the least a boneheaded idiot that should have had enough common sense to know better than meet a Russian representative during has fathers presidential campaign.

Bannon and Moore are both responsible for costing Republicans a Senate seat. There was nothing wrong with Luther Strange. Luther Strange was one of our allies, a State Attorney General who joined Alabama in the lawsuit against DACA.