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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums***Breaking***(CNN) Mueller subpoenas Bannon for testimony
Just as he is going to House Intel for questioning. It looks like the easy questions from the House Republicans is not going to be enough to satisfy the Special Counsel?
Also: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/steve-bannon-mueller-russia-subpoena.html
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The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trumps inner circle. The special counsels office has used subpoenas before to seek information on Mr. Trumps associates and their possible ties to Russia or other foreign governments.
The subpoena could be a negotiating tactic. Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsels offices about ties between Mr. Trumps associates and Russia and about the presidents conduct in office, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently than the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.
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Prosecutors generally prefer to interview witnesses before a grand jury when they believe they have information that the witnesses do not know or when they think they might catch the witnesses in a lie. It is much easier for a witness to stop the questioning or sidestep questions in an interview than during grand jury testimony, which is transcribed, and witnesses are required to answer every question.
By forcing someone to testify through a subpoena, you are providing the witness with cover because they can say, I had no choice I had to go in and testify about everything I knew, said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a prosecutor for the independent counsel that investigated Bill Clinton when he was president.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,131 posts)"Steve, when you give donald a hand job, which kind of hand cream do you use? I use gold bond soft hands, you?"
berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)PoorMonger
(844 posts)If this means that Intel will go softer on him today or what. Or if he might actually try and get out in front of stuff in a gambit to save his skin by saying more than they expect this afternoon.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)triron
(22,029 posts)triron
(22,029 posts)Gothmog
(145,794 posts)malaise
(269,254 posts)Rec
eleny
(46,166 posts)I've been wondering if Bannon would succeed in getting back into the good graces of the potus. After reading Wolff's book I thought that B's advice and observations on things happening in the White House were spot on. His thoughts on the July 16th meeting at Trump Tower and the cover up statement dictated by Trump himself, for instance. The Trumps should have sought his counsel back then. Bannon would have shut all that down before it even began.
But The Mueller Experience can make people brand new given how Mueller's team seems to have skinned the bark off some who thought they had the world by the tail. I'm thinking that Mueller has been waiting for an opening to bring Bannon in for questioning. The book may have provided that opening. But surely he's had more information tucked away that will surprise Bannon. Maybe some neo Nazi or anarchist connections?
So I'm taking a wait and see on this episode. It'll be instructive to learn Bannon's choice of a grand jury or Mueller's investigators. Sounds like the choice between a rock and a hard place. Ouch.