Senate Intel chairman: No need for committee to interview Bannon

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Thursday he doesn’t believe there’s a need for his committee to meet with former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, despite new comments from Bannon about a summer 2016 meeting between Trump campaign members and a Russian lawyer.

“I’m not sure what an individual who wants to talk about a meeting that he didn’t attend would be able to share about that meeting,” Burr told CNN. 

On Wednesday, quotes from Bannon surfaced in excerpts from author Michael Wolff’s upcoming book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” In the excerpts, Bannon describes Donald Trump Jr. as “unpatriotic” and “treasonous” for taking a meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton.

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Bannon is also quoted in the book as saying he believes there was “zero” chance Trump Jr. didn’t take the Russians upstairs in Trump Tower to meet with then-candidate Donald Trump. If true, that contradicts previous statements that President Trump did not know about the meeting.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of the multiple congressional committees conducting separate investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

The committee has already met with Trump Jr. and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, and Burr said Thursday that the committee’s previous interviews have provided “substantial insight,” according to CNN.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s top Democrat, on Wednesday night deflected questions about whether Bannon should appear before the committee, instead saying the former chief strategist’s comments need to be “proven or disproven.”

“There are a host of individuals that I believe we need to have back before the committee and, if possible, in public,” Warner said on “Meet The Press Daily.”

He added he’d like certain individuals, including Trump Jr. and Kushner, to appear before the committee again following Bannon’s comments.

“Clearly, Mr. Bannon’s comments are going to be subject to, I think, interest from our committee, I’m sure from Mr. Mueller,” Warner added, referring to Robert Mueller, the Justice Department’s special counsel investigating potential ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow’s meddling efforts. “Some of his comments are pretty explosive.”