Steve Bannon reportedly spoke with the author of an upcoming political book hitting shelves next week, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, about the ongoing Russia investigation, and if he’s to be believed, we’ve only seen a glimmer of what’s to come.
According to The Guardian, which has seen excerpts of the book, Bannon told author Michael Wolff that the focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia will be on money laundering, adding one particularly juicy pull quote. “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” he told Wolff.
As for the now-famous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Jr., Jared Kushner, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Kremlin-tied lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya — which Trump’s eldest son arranged by emailing, “I love it” — Bannon did not hold back in his criticism, which is said to be colorful at times, including calling Don Jr.’s meeting “treasonous”:
The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “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 shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
On the money laundering allegations, Bannon says that it’s easy to see where the investigation is heading. “Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy,” he said. “Their path to [bleeping] Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”
(Via The Guardian)