SO...Bannon stuck a fork in Don Jr. during testimony. SAD!

[Miles Archer]

Steve Bannon made one conspicuous slip up in his closed-door hearing on Tuesday with the House Intelligence Committee, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the confidential proceedings. Bannon admitted that he'd had conversations with Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and legal spokesman Mark Corallo about Don Junior's infamous meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016.

Why it matters: The meeting — and the subsequent drafting of a misleading statement on Air Force One — has become one of the most important focal points of the Russia investigations, both on Capitol Hill and within Robert Mueller's team, because it provides the closest thing that exists to evidence that the Trump campaign was willing to entertain collusion with Russians.

Trey Gowdy, who led the Republican questioning, pressed Bannon hard on his description of Don Junior's Trump Tower meeting as "treasonous." Gowdy asked Bannon whether he would consider it treason for somebody close to him to approach Wikileaks' Julian Assange to get opposition research on Hillary Clinton. Bannon replied that such a scenario would be bad judgment. Then Gowdy produced emails from a Cambridge Analytica employee — the Trump campaign data firm closely affiliated with Bannon — boasting of just such contacts with Assange. Bannon claimed this was the first time he'd seen these emails (though they've been in the news.)

Another pointed question to Bannon: When he told author Michael Wolff there was a "zero" percent chance that Don Junior didn't bring the Russians up to see his father after their meeting, how did he know that happened? I'm told Bannon all but conceded he was purely speculating.

https://www.axios.com/steve-bannon-congress-testimony-inside-room-e30bd797-3720-44f0-bf32-5760cb6882e9.html

[BobTheSubgenius]

1. I wish Bannon had more to offer that would have truly cooked Jr.

This doesn't seem to be anything beyond what's already been reported...and we know the shelf life of news items these days.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I still think Bannon is after Kushner

and not so much Jr.

[politicaljunkie41910]

3. There's always Hope. I'm holding onto Hope that Meuller's team will be able to get her to crack.

Hope knows all things. Has seen all things, and when Mueller and his team put the squeeze on Hope, she will tell all because she don't want to take her pretty little self to jail. As someone whose been interviewed by the FBI on several occasions, and the CIA once, you know it's serious business. My guess is that before they start questioning her, they will talk to her about the importance of being truthful, and the consequence of not being. She will tell everything. Trust me.