From Bannon’s blast to dossier’s defense, the plot thickens
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Dec. 22, 2017. Credit: AP
This Russia mess still isn’t going away, no matter what President Donald Trump says or tweets or wishes or blurts.
All the latest noise out of North Korea, Jerusalem, Democrats, Congress and Iran won’t drown it out.
On Wednesday, The Guardian news site published eye-popping quotes attributed to Steve Bannon, the purported guru-theorist-mastermind-rumpled-genius of the Trump “populist” victory.
Right-wing strategist Bannon talked about the Donald Trump Jr. meeting with Russians with Michael Wolff, author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” Bannon reportedly said.
“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 [meeting] was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad . . . and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
Bannon has been wrong about some things before, of course. But consider who he is. Although he left the White House in August, the former Goldman Sachs financier was still known to consult Trump on such pivotal matters as Senate races.
What’s odd is that someone considered such a close ally of the president — who depends so much on family members — would say such things in an interview without being captured and brainwashed by whomever the “enemy” is supposed to be.
Another drop of bad news for the Trump camp came from the founders of the private research firm that commissioned the controversial dossier detailing salacious charges against the then-candidate.
Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, founders of Fusion GPS, published an op-ed piece blasting “mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers,” making a few strong points along the way.
They were paid by both the Clinton campaign and the conservative Washington Free Beacon for work aimed at illuminating Trump’s business past. They complained that only selected parts of their 21 hours of testimony were leaked.
“We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians,” they said.
These arrangements “often raised questions about money laundering,” but Congress appeared uninterested, they said.
What Christopher Steele found “shocked us,” they wrote.
His unpaid sources in Russia “reported on an extensive — and now confirmed — effort by the Kremlin to elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the FBI.”
And all the while, special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing criminal probe continues. So far this has produced charges against Trump campaign operatives Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort that relate to money and perjury.
The scandal will have a next chapter or two, or more, before it closes.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
