WASHINGTON -- Steve Bannon's attorney relayed questions, in real time, to the White House during a House Intelligence Committee interview of President Donald Trump's former chief strategist, people familiar with the private session said.
As lawmakers asked about Bannon's time working for Trump, Bannon's attorney Bill Burck was asking the White House counsel's office by phone during the Tuesday session whether his client could answer the questions. He was told by that office not to discuss his work on the presidential transition or in the White House.
Burck was communicating with Uttam Dhillon, deputy White House counsel. Burck is also representing top White House lawyer Don McGahn in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The House Intelligence Committee is conducting its own investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 200 days]
Tuesday's conversations were confirmed by a White House official and a second person familiar with Bannon's interview. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that the questions were relayed over the phone and said it was a typical process.
"Sometimes they actually have a White House attorney present in the room," she said. "This time it was something that was relayed via phone and, again, was following standard procedure for an instance like this and something that will likely happen again on any other number of occasions, not just within this administration but future administrations."
On Wednesday, The Associated Press also confirmed that Bannon will meet with Mueller's investigators for an interview instead of appearing before a grand jury. A person familiar with that matter confirmed the plan and said Bannon is expected to cooperate with Mueller. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
It was unclear when the interview might occur.
Reps. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, who is leading the panel's Russia investigation, and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the panel's ranking member, meanwhile sent a letter to Burck insisting that Bannon return to Capitol Hill today at 2 p.m. to comply with a subpoena they issued Tuesday after Bannon refused to answer questions, citing orders from the White House.
The lawmakers instructed Bannon to be prepared "to answer all questions for which there has been no claim of privilege asserted" and to "work with the White House to expeditiously clarify the precise scope of any executive privilege claims the president may wish to invoke," according to the letter, obtained by The Washington Post.
The committee's Republican chairman, Devin Nunes of California, served the subpoena on Bannon after he refused to answer a broad array of queries about his time working for Trump.
But Burck objected to the subpoena, claiming that the time the committee afforded him to reach an agreement with the White House about where it might assert privilege is "plainly insufficient time" -- particularly if the committee wants Bannon's testimony to be accurate.
In a letter back to the committee Wednesday, Burck suggested it would be "unprofessional and possibly unethical to expect to depose a witness who has had no opportunity to review relevant documents," concluding it would be "unreasonable" to expect Bannon to comply with the request by this afternoon.
Sanders would not say later Wednesday what scope of executive privilege Trump might claim or how long it would take to work that out, noting that "Congress should consult with the White House before obtaining confidential material."
The developments brought to the forefront questions about White House efforts to control what current and former aides tell Congress about their time in Trump's inner circle, and whether Republicans on Capitol Hill would force the issue.
Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, said that while traditionally Congress has required a formal assertion of executive privilege in order for a witness to refuse to answer a question, more recently "we've seen people just not answer questions without asserting privilege."
He added that though it seems unusual for a witness's lawyer to consult in real time with the White House about which questions can be answered, it is a "bit more respectful" than a pre-emptive blanket refusal to answer questions.
A spokesman for Bannon did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, declined to comment.
SUBPOENA AS LEVERAGE
The congressional subpoena for Bannon came days after the former far-right media executive and recently scorned Trump adviser received a grand jury subpoena issued by Mueller.
That subpoena, first reported by The New York Times, appeared to be a negotiating tactic that then prompted Bannon to agree to a sit-down with Mueller's prosecutors rather than appearing before the grand jury.
Bannon confirmed that he had received the subpoena from Mueller during his House Intelligence Committee interview, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to publicly discuss Bannon's interactions with Mueller.
The committee served its subpoena after Bannon refused to answer questions about Trump's thinking when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May, Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said.
The White House counsel's office had a conversation last week with committee counsel about Bannon's testimony and was told that the questions were expected to be about the campaign, a White House official said. The official said the White House offered to send an attorney to attend the interview and was told that the move wasn't necessary.
But when the lawmaker's questions moved to Bannon's time in the White House, Bannon's lawyer got on the phone with the counsel's office.
Schiff said Tuesday night that Bannon's refusal to answer questions from the panel "can't stand" and went far beyond other witnesses who have declined to answer specific questions. He said the committee expects to have Bannon return for more questioning.
"This was effectively a gag order by the White House preventing this witness from answering almost any question concerning his time in the administration and many questions even after he left the administration," Schiff said.
Bannon's stonewalling left members of both parties frustrated.
"Only Steve Bannon could unite this committee," said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.
The subpoenas intensify the pressure on the former Breitbart News executive after his public falling-out with Trump, who reacted angrily to comments Bannon made in the new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
In the book by journalist Michael Wolff, Bannon criticized Trump for his firing of Comey and said it was "treasonous" of Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. to accept a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer who he thought would provide damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
After the book's publication, Bannon expressed regret about his statements and called Trump Jr. "a patriot."
Bannon -- the first top Trump adviser known to be summoned by special counsel investigators for a grand jury interview -- could provide valuable testimony about what he witnessed in the final months of Trump's presidential campaign and inside the White House, where he served as chief strategist until August, experts said.
"They are going to try to get an understanding of the relationships and how things worked and explain why he came to that opinion," said Peter Zeidenberg, a former deputy special counsel.
Bannon has told associates that he did not see any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government but thinks Mueller's case could focus on financial improprieties, according to two people familiar with his views.
MUM AND NOT MUM
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was interviewed by the House panel on Wednesday.
Lewandowski never served in the White House. Still, he declined to answer questions from the Intelligence Committee about any topic after his departure from the presidential campaign, Schiff told reporters.
"Mr. Lewandowski said he was not prepared to answer those questions today," Schiff said.
Schiff said that one of the questions that Lewandowski wouldn't answer was: "Did you have a conversation with the president of the United States within the last 24 hours where you discussed your testimony?"
Lewandowski didn't cite executive privilege, according to Schiff, who said Lewandowski did express a willingness to return to the committee at a later date to answer its remaining questions.
Schiff said it's "completely unacceptable to have a witness come before us and decide for purposes of today's interviews these whole categories of questions [are] off-limits."
Lewandowski's move was in "sharp contrast," Schiff said, to the approach of another witness interviewed by the committee Wednesday: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn.
"Answered every question we had. Was fully cooperative," Schiff said. "Invoked no executive privilege. Invoked no anticipation of executive privilege" regarding events during the campaign, the transition or the current administration.
Lewandowski was fired as campaign manager on June 20, 2016, and replaced by Paul Manafort, who has been indicted on money-laundering charges by Mueller.
Separately Wednesday, a status hearing for George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was postponed for up to 90 days. Papadopoulos is cooperating with Mueller's inquiry while awaiting sentencing.
Information for this article was contributed by Tom LoBianco, Zeke Miller, Jonathan Lemire, Chad Day, Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press; by Billy House of Bloomberg News; by Karoun Demirjian, Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman and Robert Costa of The Washington Post; and by Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times.
A Section on 01/18/2018