Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Donald Trump, recently told a House panel investigating the Capitol riot that he would be willing to testify now that Trump says he will not invoke executive privilege.
In a Saturday letter to the committee obtained by ABC News, Bannon said he would prefer to testify in a live, public hearing after the former president sent him a separate letter Saturday — also obtained by ABC — waiving objections.
Both the House committee and federal prosecutors who tried to speak with Bannon said claims of executive privilege never covered him because the Jan. 6, 2021, riot took place long after Bannon left his post as White House chief strategist in 2017.
Bannon previously recused himself from the committee’s subpoena and is awaiting trial on contempt of court charges.
His lawyer wrote on his behalf in the letter this weekend that “circumstances have now changed”.
“President Trump has determined that it would be in the best interest of the American people to waive Stephen K. Bannon’s executive privilege to allow Mr. Bannon to comply with the subpoena issued by your committee. Mr. Bannon is ready and indeed prefers to testify at your public hearing,” attorney Bob Costello wrote. “Mr. Bannon is willing and indeed prefers to testify at your public hearing.”
It is unclear whether Bannon now also plans to comply with the committee’s request for documents that accompanied his subpoena.
A video clip of Steve Bannon is shown on a screen during a hearing of the US House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol in Washington, June 16, 2022.
Sarah Silbiger/Reuters
In Trump’s letter to Bannon, Trump reiterated his criticism of the House committee and wrote that he believed his former aide — now a right-wing commentator — had been treated “unfairly.”
“When you were first subpoenaed to testify and produce documents, I invoked executive privilege. However, I have seen how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend huge sums of money in legal fees and all the trauma you must have going through out of love for your country and out of respect for the office of the President,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, if you will reach an agreement as to the time and place for your testimony, I will waive the executive privilege for you that allows you to come in and testify truthfully and fairly. . . .”
The letters were first reported by The Guardian.
Speaking on CNN Sunday morning, Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren suggested the group had not yet considered removing Bannon, but hinted that public testimony may be unlikely. “It goes on hour after hour after hour. We want to get all of our questions answered, and you can’t do that in a live format,” Lofgren told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
The panel usually held private depositions with witnesses before they gave live testimony in the hearing room — or clips of their testimony were broadcast to the public.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, another committee member, was asked by ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday about Bannon’s possible testimony. Kinzinger said that “in a high-level position, anyone who wants to come in, who knows information, to speak to the select committee, we welcome them to do so.”
“We welcome them to do so under oath. And we all know the story of our claims to have spoken to Steve Bannon. So we’ll see how that pans out,” Kinzinger said.
Steve Bannon speaks to reporters before entering the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., June 15, 2022.
Elizabeth Franz/Reuters
After defying the subpoena on January 6 last year, Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, despite claiming that Trump’s claim of privilege protected him.
He pleaded not guilty and will appear in court next week.
Bannon remained an outside adviser to Trump after helping run his first presidential campaign and brief stint in the White House. He was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, the committee said in a Jan. 6 letter to Bannon in a 2021 letter accompanying his subpoena.
He was quoted as saying, “All hell will break loose tomorrow,” the panel wrote in that letter, citing a Jan. 5, 2021, episode of his “War Room” podcast.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
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