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      ‘Game over’: Steve Bannon audio reveals Trump planned to claim early victory

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      ‘Game over’: Steve Bannon audio reveals Trump planned to claim early victoryRecording shows the president intended to ‘take advantage’ of early vote lead and declare himself the winner prematurely Days before the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump was already planning to declare victory on election night, even if there was no evidence he was winning, according to a leaked Steve Bannon conversation recorded before the vote.In the audio, recorded three days before the election and published by Mother Jones on Wednesday, Bannon told a group of associates Trump already had a scheme in place for the 3 November vote.“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon, laughing, told the group, according to the audio.“He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”The release of the audio comes as Bannon is due to go on trial Monday for criminal contempt, after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol in 2021.On Wednesday Bannon’s attorneys again asked a federal judge to delay the trial, citing references to some of his past comments during Tuesday’s public hearing of the select committee, and the planned airing of a CNN documentary on Bannon the day before his trial is due to start.Both events create “the very serious risk of prejudice here” among jurors, Bannon’s lawyers said, according to CNBC.On Monday a federal judge dismissed a previous motion by Bannon to delay the trial, and ruled Bannon could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.That came after Bannon said he was now willing to testify before the House select committee, an offer dismissed by the justice department as a “last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability”, and US district judge Carl Nichols said the trial must go ahead.Before the 2020 election it had been reported that Trump planned to declare victory early, and in the Mother Jones audio Bannon says the former president planned to “take advantage” of the likelihood that Democratic postal votes would be tallied later than in-person Republican ballots.Trump did exactly that hours after the election, claiming: “Frankly, we did win this election”, even as millions of ballots were yet to be counted, and after Fox News had – correctly – called the state of Arizona for Joe Biden.“As it sits here today,” Bannon said later in the audio, describing a scenario in which Trump held an early lead in swing states, “at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that.’”Mother Jones said the audio, which is nearly an hour long, was recorded during a meeting between Bannon and supporters of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese mogul whom Bannon helped launch a series of rightwing websites.In the meeting Bannon said Democratic supporters were more likely than Republicans to vote by mail, meaning their votes would be counted and reported later.That would lead to a public perception that Trump was winning the election, according to the audio. Democrats would “have a natural disadvantage”, Bannon said.“And Trump’s going to take advantage of it. That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.”“So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm,” Bannon said.“You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.’”Axios reported before the 2020 election that Trump had “told confidants he’ll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he’s ‘ahead’”, and Bannon said on his podcast on the day of the election that Trump would claim victory “right before the 11 o’clock news”. The Mother Jones audio supports both claims.Trump, the only US president to have been impeached twice, lost the election: Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. About 81.3 million people voted for Biden, compared with 74.2 million for Trump.TopicsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpSteve BannonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Bannon suffers setback as judge rejects delaying contempt of Congress trial

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      Bannon suffers setback as judge rejects delaying contempt of Congress trialFederal judge also rejects claim by former Trump strategist that he thought his non-compliance was excused by executive privilege Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury. Bannon initiates talks with January 6 panel on testifying over Capitol attackRead moreThe flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.Nichols refused in federal court in Washington DC, to delay Bannon’s trial date set for next Monday, saying that he saw no reason to push back proceedings after he severely limited the defences that the former Trump aide’s lawyers could present to a jury.The defeats for Bannon stunned his lead lawyer, David Schoen, who asked, aghast: “What’s the point of going to trial if we don’t have any defences?”Nichols stripped Bannon of two of his main defences for defying the select committee’s subpoena, ruling he could not present evidence to the jury that he had relied on the advice of counsel, and could not rely on entrapment by estoppel, the argument that a defendant was advised erroneously by an official that certain conduct was legal.The decision, Nichols said, came in large part because he was bound by the controlling case law at the DC circuit level, which ruled in Licavoli v United States 1961, that advice of counsel was no defence against contempt of Congress charges.Nichols also rejected Bannon’s claims that he thought his non-compliance was excused by executive privilege, and narrowed the arguments Bannon could present to mainly whether he was aware of the deadlines for testimony and producing documents established by the select committee.The decision not to allow Bannon to pursue executive privilege arguments came after the US prosecutors said in a filing that Trump’s own attorney, Justin Clark, told the FBI last month that Trump never invoked privilege for specific materials compelled in the subpoena.But Nichols went further and said Bannon could not make an executive privilege claim because none of the justice department’s internal guidelines he supposedly relied on to determine he was immune from the congressional inquiry applied to non-White House officials, such as Bannon was at that time.The judge, in refusing to delay the trial date, ruled in favour of prosecutors who urged him to look past Bannon’s “sudden wish to testify” to the House select committee – a development first reported by the Guardian – as nothing more than a last-ditch move to avoid trial.It was not clear whether Bannon still intended to testify and produce documents to the select committee after Nichols’ rulings.Nichols handed down additional defeats for Bannon, rejecting the interpretation by Bannon’s lawyers of “willful non-compliance” which they took to include an element of intent. Nichols said prosecutors needed only to show his default was deliberate and intentional.He quashed Bannon’s motion to subpoena top Democrats – including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and select committee members, and denied a motion to introduce evidence about the justice department’s decision not to charge other Trump White House officials referred for contempt.The judge, who served in George W Bush’s justice department, also reaffirmed that the select committee was properly constituted and served a legitimate legislative function, in a significant signal undercutting claims by some House Republicans.While some Republican congressmen have complained that the panel was illegitimate, Nichols said the House voting on contempt referrals from the panel meant it had been repeatedly ratified, and he would defer to the House to interpret its own rules.TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Bannon initiates talks with January 6 panel on testifying over Capitol attack

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      Bannon initiates talks with January 6 panel on testifying over Capitol attackCooperation of former Trump strategist could provide unique insight into inner-workings of Trump’s push to overturn election Steve Bannon, the onetime strategist to Donald Trump who was involved in the former president’s efforts to invalidate his defeat in the 2020 election, has opened discussions with the House January 6 select committee about testifying to the inquiry into the Capitol attack.The offer of cooperation could mark a breakthrough for the panel, which has sought Bannon’s testimony for months, believing he could provide unique insight into the inner-workings of Trump’s unlawful push to stop the congressional certification of his loss to Joe Biden from taking place.Bannon signalled in an email to the select committee, first obtained by the Guardian, that he was prepared to initiate discussions about a time and place for an interview, after Trump said in a letter he would waive executive privilege if he reached an agreement to testify.The email broadly reiterated Bannon’s legal defense that he was previously unable to comply with a subpoena from the panel because at the time, in a claim that has been disputed, the former president had asserted executive privilege over his testimony.But with Trump now willing to waive executive privilege if Bannon and the select committee could secure an arrangement, Bannon was in a position to initiate negotiations about a potential interview, the email said, citing the letter from the former president.The situation with Bannon and executive privilege is complex because he has argued that he does not have to have been a White House employee – he was not for January 6 – to be a close presidential adviser dispensing confidential advice and be subject to executive privilege.He has also argued that while the supreme court has ruled that a current president’s waiver for executive privilege overrules a former president’s assertion, Biden never formally waived Trump’s assertion – the select committee didn’t believe Trump asserted it in the first place.Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, January 6 committee member and congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said she anticipated the panel would schedule an interview with Bannon.“I expect that we will be hearing from him,” Lofgren said. “And there are many questions that we have for him.”The email specifically said Bannon was prepared to testify at a public hearing. It did not say whether Bannon would agree to appear at a closed-door interview first, or ever, and whether he would provide documents in addition to providing testimony.Also unclear was the extent of the assistance Bannon might provide in his testimony, though he was a witness to several key moments in the illicit effort to stop the certification of Biden’s election win on 6 January.That would mean Bannon could, in theory, reveal to House investigators about his conversations with Trump ahead of the Capitol attack – Bannon spoke with Trump on the phone the night before – and strategy discussions at the Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel in Washington.The Trump “war room” at the Willard played a major role in the former president’s push to stop the certification. Bannon was based there in the days before the attack, alongside Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, widely seen as the architects of that scheme.Bannon’s offer to testify appears to be a strategic move ahead of his trial for criminal contempt of Congress, scheduled to start on 18 July, that comes after justice department prosecutors charged him for refusing to comply with the select committee’s subpoena last year.The move to testify to the panel now would not “cure” his contempt since he faces criminal contempt and the prosecution is for the past failure to comply with the subpoena, according to former US attorney Joyce Vance.But the email offering to testify could have the effect of reinforcing his legal defense that Trump did in fact assert a legitimate executive privilege claim in October 2021, and that he cannot be prosecuted because of that invocation, according to his letter on Saturday.The offer to testify – and an actual agreement where he appears before the select committee – could also serve to defang the prosecution to some extent, making it a less attractive case for the justice department to pursue and one generally less appealing to jurors.Regardless of what Trump now says in his letter, and in referring Bannon for prosecution, the select committee has maintained that Trump did not assert executive privilege – and even if he did, it did not cover Bannon, who was out of the Trump White House by 6 January.The select committee has also said that Bannon was required to respond to the subpoena in some way, for instance by citing executive privilege on a question-by-question basis, and at least responding to questions that had nothing to do with Trump.Bannon became one of two former Trump advisers charged by the justice department for contempt of Congress. Federal prosecutors also charged Peter Navarro but declined to prosecute the former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the deputy chief, Dan Scavino.TopicsUS politicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackReuse this content More

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      Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports say

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      Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports sayDecision from former president would clear way for one-time adviser to testify before committee investigating Capitol attack Donald Trump is considering waiving executive privilege for his longtime political adviser Steve Bannon, which would clear the way for a key ally of the former president to testify before the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol.Trump is reportedly considering sending a letter to Bannon, his former White House strategist, acknowledging that he granted Bannon executive privilege on 21 September but is now willing to give up the claim if Bannon reaches an agreement to testify before the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post first reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.According to the Post, some of Trump’s advisers have warned him not to send the letter, but the ex-president may be bullish on getting a witness who is ostensibly friendlier to him to appear at one of the committee’s televised hearings.Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in November after defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol riots. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.If convicted, Bannon could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. His trial is expected to start later this month, reported CNN.Bannon has claimed that discussions between Trump and him are protected under the dictum of executive privilege. But prosecutors say Bannon is not protected because he was not working at the White House on the day of the Capitol attack.The committee has also said that Bannon’s executive privilege claims do not mean he can simply ignore the subpoena outright, but he could cite the privilege in response to certain questions.“Even if your client had been a senior aide to [Trump] during the time period covered by the contemplated testimony, which he was most assuredly not, he is not permitted by law to the type of immunity you suggest that Mr. Trump has requested he assert,” committee chair Bennie Thompson wrote to Bannon’s attorney in October.Federal prosecutors have not brought contempt charges against other Trump aides who ignored subpoenas while citing executive privilege, including former White house chief of staff Mark Meadows.Even after leaving his position in the White House, Bannon remained an outspoken proponent of the falsehood that electoral fraudsters stole the 2020 presidential race against Joe Biden from Trump.The committee has staged numerous public hearings airing evidence that the lie helped inspire the attack on the Capitol, to which a bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths.TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aides weeks before election

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      January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aides weeks before electionFootage captured by documentary film-maker understood to show former president’s children privately discussing election strategies The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington DC that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.The select committee is interested in the calls, the sources said, since the footage is understood to show the former president’s children, including Donald Jr and Eric Trump, privately discussing strategies about the election at a crucial time in the presidential campaign.‘Watergate for streaming era’: how the January 6 panel created gripping hearingsRead moreHouse investigators first learned about the event, hosted by the Trump campaign, and the existence of the footage through British film-maker Alex Holder, who testified about what he and his crew recorded during a two-hour interview last week, the sources said.The film-maker testified that he had recorded around seven hours of one-to-one interviews with Trump, then-vice president Mike Pence, Trump’s adult children and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the sources said, as well as around 110 hours of footage from the campaign.But one part of Holder’s testimony that particularly piqued the interest of the members of the select committee and chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy was when he disclosed that he had managed to record discussions at the 29 September 2020 event.The select committee is closely focused on the footage of the event – in addition to the content of the one-on-one interviews with Trump and Ivanka – because the discussions about strategies mirror similar conversations at that time by top Trump advisors.On the night of the first presidential debate, Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon said in an interview with HBO’s The Circus that the outcome of the 2020 election would be decided at the state level and eventually at the congressional certification on January 6.“They’re going to try and overturn this election with uncertified votes,” Bannon said. Asked how he expects the election to end, Bannon said: “Right before noon on the 20th, in a vote in the House, Trump will win the presidency.”The select committee believes that ideas such as Bannon’s were communicated to advisors to Donald Jr and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, even before the 2020 election had taken place, the sources said – leading House investigators to want to review the Trump hotel footage.What appears to interest the panel is whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop the certification of the election on January 6 – a potential violation of federal law – and to force a contingent election if Trump lost as early as September.The event was not open to the public, Holder is said to have testified, and the documentary film-maker was waved into the Trump hotel by Eric Trump. At some point after Holder caught the calls on tape, he is said to have been asked to leave by Donald Jr.Among the conversations captured on film was Eric Trump on the phone to an unidentified person saying, according to one source familiar: “Hopefully you’re voting in Florida as opposed to the other state you’ve mentioned.”January 6 hearings: if Republicans did nothing wrong, why were pardons sought?Read moreThe phone call – a clip of which was reviewed by the Guardian – was one of several by some of the people closest to Trump that Holder memorialized in his film, titled Unprecedented, which is due to be released in a three-part series later this year on Discovery+.Holder also testified to the select committee, the sources said, about the content of the interviews. Holder interviewed Trump in early December 2020 at the White House, and then twice a few months after the Capitol attack both at Mar-a-Lago and his Bedminster golf club.The select committee found Holder’s testimony and material more explosive than they had expected, the sources said. Holder, for instance, showed the panel a discrepancy between Ivanka Trump’s testimony to the panel and Holder’s camera.In her interview in December 2020, the New York Times earlier reported, Ivanka said her father should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” because people were questioning “the sanctity of our elections”.That interview was recorded nine days after former attorney general William Barr told Trump there was no evidence of election fraud. But in her interview with the select committee, Ivanka said she had “accepted” what Barr had said.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansDonald Trump JrSteve BannonnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aides

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      January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aidesFootage captured by documentary film-maker understood to show ex-president’s children privately discussing election strategies The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.The select committee is interested in the calls, the sources said, since the footage is understood to show the former president’s children, including Donald Jr and Eric Trump, privately discussing strategies about the election at a crucial time in the presidential campaign.‘Watergate for streaming era’: how the January 6 panel created gripping hearingsRead moreHouse investigators first learned about the event, hosted by the Trump campaign, and the existence of the footage through British film-maker Alex Holder, who testified about what he and his crew recorded during a two-hour interview last week, the sources said.The film-maker testified that he had recorded around seven hours of one-to-one interviews with Trump, then-vice president Mike Pence, Trump’s adult children and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the sources said, as well as around 110 hours of footage from the campaign.But one part of Holder’s testimony that particularly piqued the interest of the members of the select committee and chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy was when he disclosed that he had managed to record discussions at the 29 September event.The select committee is closely focused on the footage of the event – in addition to the content of the one-on-one interviews with Trump and Ivanka – because the discussions about strategies mirror similar conversations at that time by top Trump advisors.On the night of the first presidential debate, Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon said in an interview with The Circus on Showtime that the outcome of the election would be decided at the state level and eventually at the congressional certification on January 6.“They’re going to try and overturn this election with uncertified votes,” Bannon said. Asked how he expects the election to end, Bannon said: “Right before noon on the 20th, in a vote in the House, Trump will win the presidency.”The select committee believes that ideas such as Bannon’s were communicated to advisers to Donald Jr and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, even before the 2020 election had taken place, the sources said – leading House investigators to want to review the Trump hotel footage.What appears to interest the panel is whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop the certification of the election on January 6 – a potential violation of federal law – and to force a contingent election if Trump lost as early as September.The event was not open to the public, Holder is said to have testified, and the documentary film-maker was waved into the Trump hotel by Eric Trump. At some point after Holder caught the calls on tape, he is said to have been asked to leave by Donald Jr.Among the conversations captured on film was Eric Trump on the phone to an unidentified person saying, according to one source familiar: “Hopefully you’re voting in Florida as opposed to the other state you’ve mentioned.”January 6 hearings: if Republicans did nothing wrong, why were pardons sought?Read moreThe phone call – a clip of which was reviewed by the Guardian – was one of several by some of the people closest to Trump that Holder memorialized in his film, titled Unprecedented, which is due to be released in a three-part series later this year on Discovery+.Holder also testified to the select committee, the sources said, about the content of the interviews. Holder interviewed Trump in early December 2020 at the White House, and then twice a few months after the Capitol attack both at Mar-a-Lago and his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.The select committee found Holder’s testimony and material more explosive than they had expected, the sources said. Holder, for instance, showed the panel a discrepancy between Ivanka Trump’s testimony to the panel and Holder’s camera.In her interview in December 2020, the New York Times earlier reported, Ivanka said her father should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” because people were questioning “the sanctity of our elections”.That interview was recorded nine days after former attorney general William Barr told Trump there was no evidence of election fraud. But in her interview with the select committee, Ivanka said she had “accepted” what Barr had said.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansDonald Trump JrSteve BannonnewsReuse this content More

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      Pelosi and other top Democrats subpoenaed over Bannon contempt case

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      Pelosi and other top Democrats subpoenaed over Bannon contempt caseLawyers for ex-Trump adviser request details of Capitol attack panel’s decision-making process that led to contempt ruling Top House Democrats, including speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the members of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, have been subpoenaed to testify in court in connection with the criminal contempt case against Donald Trump’s one-time chief strategist Steve Bannon.The subpoenas – which were accepted by the House counsel, Doug Letter, last Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter – compel the handover of documents and testimony about internal decision-making that led to Bannon’s contempt case.John Kerry commits to look into case of missing British journalist in BrazilRead moreBut whether the subpoenas stand depends on how Judge Carl Nichols rules at a hearing next week, where he will asses pre-trial motions. Nichols could decide the testimony of members of Congress, for instance, is inadmissible because of protections like the so-called speech and debate clause.Bannon’s lawyers are seeking cooperation from top Democrats including Pelosi, the House majority leader Steny Hoyer, the House majority whip Jim Clyburn, all members of the select committee and three select committee counsels, as well as Letter.The subpoenas request materials that Bannon’s lawyers believe will provide evidence that the select committee did not follow House rules in issuing its subpoena to Bannon last year, and that federal prosecutors violated justice department rules in filing charges.It was not clear on Tuesday whether Letter, the House counsel, would move to quash the trial subpoenas. Letter, through a spokesman for the select committee, could not be reached for comment.Letter could also move to reach an arrangement with David Schoen, the lead lawyer defending Bannon in his contempt case. Schoen told the Guardian he would be prepared to discuss the matter in the hope that Letter would not move to dismiss the subpoenas.“The subpoenas are asking for materials that belong to the American people. It would be pretty ironic for the committee to quash the subpoenas when they issued a subpoena demanding materials from Bannon, where Trump asserted executive privilege,” Schoen said.Bannon’s lawyers are making a multi-pronged defense to try and save Bannon from being convicted of criminal contempt of Congress after he was referred to the justice department for prosecution for failing to comply with a subpoena in the congressional January 6 inquiry.The main thrust of Bannon’s argument is that he cannot be held in wilful contempt because he could reasonably believe the subpoena was invalid when the select committee failed to allow a Trump lawyer to attend his deposition, after Trump asserted executive privilege.The argument rests on a 2019 justice department office of legal counsel opinion that says congressional subpoenas that prevent executive branch counsel from accompanying executive branch employees to depositions are “legally invalid” and not enforceable.Bannon’s lawyers are also making the case that the select committee in violation of House rules made no effort to grant a one-week extension to reply to the subpoena after his attorney asked for time to review Trump’s related lawsuit against the panel.The defense that Bannon is advancing – using broad readings of parts of the justice department’s own positions and amalgamating them into a wider argument – is controversial, but it underscores the complexities facing federal prosecutors in pursuing the case.“Bannon’s trying to use the OLC opinions as a shield that doesn’t quite cover him, but gives him enough of a defense to fend off the DoJ’s necessity of proving criminal intent,” Jonathan Shaub, a University of Kentucky law professor and a former OLC attorney-adviser, previously told the Guardian.TopicsSteve BannonUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Kellyanne Conway takes aim at Bannon in book but hits Trump in process

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      Kellyanne Conway takes aim at Bannon in book but hits Trump in processFormer senior counselor to Donald Trump says president was ‘too trusting of others who lacked transparency or talent’ In her new memoir, Kellyanne Conway lavishes abuse on Steve Bannon, calling the former White House strategist a “leaking dirigible” and an “unpaternal, paternalistic bore of a boor” more concerned with his own image than serving Donald Trump.The ‘straight, white, Christian, suburban mom’ taking on Republicans at their own gameRead moreBut in doing so, the former senior counselor to the ex-US president criticises Trump himself, otherwise a notable escapee from her book.“One of Trump’s biggest selling points,” Conway writes in one of many takedowns of Bannon, “was his refreshing lack of political experience. But the flip side of that quality was his occasional blind spots when it came to personnel decisions and political endorsements.”Trump’s endorsements are the focus of fierce attention. In Georgia primaries on Tuesday his candidate for governor, David Perdue, seems doomed to defeat while his Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, is widely deemed unsuitable for the role.Conway continues: “[Trump] was often too trusting of others who lacked transparency or talent, and insufficiently skeptical of those who were pushing the wrong people as candidates for office or as colleagues in the administration. I won some of those arguments and lost some.”Conway’s book, Here’s the Deal, has caused arguments since excerpts were reported last week. It is published in the US on Tuesday.The New Jersey Republican operative was both the first woman to manage a winning presidential campaign and a relatively rare senior staffer to last four years in the chaotic Trump White House.Her avoidance of criticising Trump has been widely reported. Her criticism of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser, and her version of the strain placed on her marriage by her husband George Conway’s open disdain for Trump, have also been widely discussed.She charges that others in the Trump White House leaked to the media consistently.“As a frequent guest in mixed political company,” she writes, “I’d been much more transparent and much more reserved in my dealings than the leaking Bannon dirigible hovering about, and the taxpayer-funded Kushner image-curation machine stationed inside and outside the White House.”Bannon has been a source for multiple tell-alls, but Conway’s protestations of discretion might ring hollow to some.As the Guardian wrote in its review of Team of Vipers, a 2019 memoir by a former Trump aide: “[Cliff] Sims spills the beans on Conway repeatedly trashing Jared Kushner, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon and Sean Spicer to the mainstream media, while recounting to the press ostensibly private conversations with the president.”Conway says her relationship with Bannon began well, though she found him to be “a strange dude, gruff, unkempt, prone to sweeping historical assertions and bold declarations about the current state of politics”.The two were introduced by Rebekah Mercer, a far-right mega-donor whose ownership of Cambridge Analytica, a Bannon-linked data firm which became enmeshed in scandal, remains unexamined by Conway.“Our arranged marriage got off to a promising start” before the 2016 election, Conway says of Bannon, as the two operatives “tried to shake up some stuck-in-the-mud Republicans and introduce fresh names to the candidate hunt”.‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblowerRead moreShe also says Bannon urged her to take a job in Trump’s White House, saying: “Fuck, girl, c’mon: you gotta do this.”But Conway says that in the White House, Bannon’s “main job seemed to be building his own fiefdom”. She also says Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, warned her Bannon was on his way out.Bannon left the White House in August 2017, amid uproar over Donald Trump’s courting of far-right activists with whom Bannon remains closely associated.Bannon is the only Trump aide to face a criminal charge related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Charged with contempt of Congress, he has pleaded not guilty.TopicsKellyanne ConwayTrump administrationSteve BannonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More