Legal team tells nbc news he is cooperating with the special counsel and will be interviewed by muellers team instead of testifying before a grand jury per se. The date has yet to be determined. Yesterday steve bannon spent nearly ten hours in a closeddoor hearing with the House Intelligence Committee where he was subpoenaed on the spot for his failure to answer some of the questions, saying the white house instructed him not to talk about his time in the administration or during the transition. But ax yoes reports according to sources with knowledge of the hearings bannon made one slip admitted he had conversations with reince priebus, sean spicer, and mark ka rolo about don jr. s infail miscellaneous meeting with the russians in trump tower in june 2016. Were learning that bannons attorney bill burke was in direct contact with the white house during that house intel appearance. Today the white house defended its coordination with bannon. Theres a report today that Steve Bannons attorney was relaying the questions he was asked by the Senate Intel Committee in realtime to the white house. So my questions are, who was he relaying the questions to . Is that something the white house specifically asked his attorney to do . If so, why did the white house think that was a necessary step in handling bannons testimony . Thats the same process that is typically followed. Sometimes they actually have a white house attorney present in the room. This time it was something that was relayed via phone. And again was following standard procedure. The question from Ashley Parker of the Washington Post. New reporting today from our colleagues at cnbc add slightly more context to this. According to a white house official, staffers for the house Intel Committee and the white house on friday discussed the parameters of bannons testimony. The white house emerged from that conversation believing it had an agreement to limit the questioning of bannon just to events during the campaign, and not during the transition period or his time in the white house. Today the House Intelligence Committee heard from other key trump aides, former Campaign Manager corey lewandowski, Deputy White House chief of staff rick dearborn. Late this afternoon the top democrat on the house Intel Committee said this about lewandowskis interview. He came to testify, yesterday he said on fox that he would answer every question we had, today, however, he refused to answer questions, like steve bannon, that referred to anything after he left the campaign. This, in my view, is completely unacceptable. We have a member of the house Intel Committee standing by to talk to us tonight live. But first lets introduce our leadoff panel on a wednesday night. Michael crowley, National Security editor, Senior Correspondent for politico. We welcome to our broadcast barbara mcquaid, veteran former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of michigan, currently a law professor at the university of michigan. And tom lo bianco, White House Reporter for the associated press. Tom, give us the state of play in what has been billed alternately as a white house versus house intel equation with mr. Bannon in the middle. Yeah, that really came to a head this week here with bannon yesterday giving us a pretty good window into how the white house sees executive privilege. And the exertion of that. And whether this whole question of whether or not you even need to exert it explicitly. I was talking with a white house official earlier today who told me that they see it as executive privilege is in play unless the president explicitly waives it. Which seems to be an inverted reading of it, as opposed to some previous administrations. So now the question here is, all right, yesterday we had steve bannon, today we had rick deer bore, another Top White House official. Later were expecting to have hope hicks, communications director, close trump confidant. Whats going to happen there . Do we see a pattern . We didnt see that today with rick dearborn, where he did answer questions. Sources tell me that the answers werent terribly substantive, so maybe that was the reason why he was okay answering those questions. Were still trying to figure out where the parameters are of this. Its a big battle right now between the house intel and the white house. Barbara, youre the lawyer here. Everybodys tossing around executive privilege. Who has the right to do that . And is that any shield for steve bannon to avoid questions in a house Intel Committee hearing . Well, its really interesting because there is not a lot of case law on executive privilege. You know, it comes about only under extraordinary circumstances. It doesnt get tested a lot. So no one really knows exactly what the boundaries are. But traditionally the president needs to proactively assert it if he wants to shield someone from testifying about some matter. And its very narrow. Its about deliberative processes. Not everything that happened in the white house, or in the transition. And so i think that at some point well see some pushback. Now do the republicans on the hill have the backbone to push back . Well see. But i can bet you Robert Mueller will have the backbone to push back. The penalty for failure to comply with up answered questions could be contempt of court or litigation, so that we do finetune and draw the parameters of what executive privilege really means. Yeah, as a former fed, you know best. You dont want to lie or withhold truth from the feds as a rule. Michael, put another way, todays revelation about the fbi means the last two heads of trumps political operation have had visits at home from agents of the fbi. What is it the white house doesnt want steve bannon talking about . Well, we dont know. Steve bannon saw a lot, knows a lot. He had a front row seat to a critical stretch in Donald Trumps political trajectory. But the thing that jumps out to me and probably to viewers is that 2016, june 2016 trump tower meeting with a russian lawyer who was promising dirt on Hillary Clinton that was attended by donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner, and paul manafort, which bannon so unforgettably spoke to Michael Wolff about in the sensational book wolff wrote that weve all been talking about and which bannon described as a treasonous meeting, unpatriotic, denounces it, horrified by it, and adds for good measure he thinks theres no way those russians would have come to trump tower without being taken upstairs to meet donald trump himself. Now clearly that meeting is a critical part of muellers investigation. Weve gotten conflicting versions of what happened there. I think its still not clear exactly what transpired. And i would think that would be one of the main things that mueller would want to know more from bannon about. Thomas, as you were going through the list of other folks who have been talking to just house intel, save mueller for the moment. I was thinking this is getting so systematic. Nothing quite puts the fear of god into current and former white house aides who have all been kind of forced to lawyer up, other than knowing that other people are in there talking and that versions of history better match at the end of the day. Yeah, thats really interesting. Theres a big question between what is told to congress, and does that match up with what is told to mueller . Youre not supposed to lie to congress. Thats against the law. But the bigger jeopardy seems to be what would happen if you lied to a federal agent, if you lie to an fbi agent working with mueller, if you lie to any of his prosecutors. If those stories dont match up. This gets into that interesting interplay between the congressional investigators and the federal investigators. I forget where i read this, might have been nbc, where there was a report that they had spoken the congressional investigators had checked with mueller before lining up bannons interview. Theres still a tug and pull in terms of who gets to interview who. Does mueller take precedence over the committees . Do they share information . Thats been kind of an ongoing struggle. And that goes to possibly the biggest point of jeopardy for these administration, current and former Administration Officials in all this. All right, counselor. Again, we come back to you. I have a cluster of questions for you. Number one, is the Mueller Investigation considered on the record or off . Foremost, preeminent among all of those. Number two, when we say a Mueller Bannon conversation, would mueller actually show up for Something Like that . Or is that deputy counsel in charge of that area of the conversation . Well, for your first question about is the Mueller Investigation preeminent, you know, theres separate branches of government, here at work i think they want to defer to each other. But i also bet you members of congress are mindful that the one who really wields the most power and can bring criticism until charges in this case is Robert Mueller. My guess is that the members of congress dont want to do anything that might cause problems for muellers investigation down the road. Because the consequences there i think can be greater. And then with respect to whether Robert Mueller is actually in the room, i bet he is. He probably will not be the lead questioner. I have read that in some of the other interviews there have been teams of people who have come in. Those who are focusing on different aspects. For example, those focusing on the cyber portion of the investigation. Those focusing on Money Laundering will come in in shifts. Robert mueller sits in the corner and listens carefully to all that is said, taking it all in. So my hunch is that a similar scenario would play out with steve bannon. And barbara, confirm for me you cant take a pass on any of the questions they have for you, correct . Yeah, thats right. You know, you could assert your fifth amendment right not to incriminate yourself under that circumstance. Then mueller his team would have a decision to make whether to grant immunity and get a compulsion order from a judge to compel that testimony. So thats something theyd have to wait and see. That would be the only opportunity that someone like steve bannon would have to take a pass on a question. Michael, one of the unknowns here is how much bannon might be trying to stay in the good graces of donald trump. He has lost his job in the west wing. He has now lost his job at breitbart. And we are led to believe his financial backing. Lost the exposure that his radio platform gave him. So i guess its a fair question to ask. Yeah, absolutely, brian. One interpretation of what happened during bannons appearance before the House Intelligence Committee is that he might have gone out of his way to be obstinate, to be difficult, to make a show of not cooperating as a way of pleasing the white house. As a way of pleasing President Trump. People who watch this show will remember that bannon was quoted by Michael Wolff saying some incendiary thins that infuriated the white house. Donald trump lashed out against him, called him sloppy steve on twitter. It wasnt long before bannon issued a kind of some people thought sort of a groveling apology. Taking a lot of it back, saying he didnt mean it, saying it wasnt true. And it was clear why he was doing that. He had done enormous damage to his own professional standing, basically lost his job over it. So is he now continuing to try to get himself back in the good graces of the white house by maybe kicking and fussing before the congressional committees, but again, you cant do that with Robert Mueller. And thats going to be behind closed doors that really havent leaked anyway. And also i would note that white house chief of staff john kelley on fox news tonight was very cold when he spoke about bannon. It was a little confusing because he said the white house had not instructed bannon to invoke executive privilege. Thats a whole separate question. I thought that was very strange that kelley said that, but also said bannon has had basically no contact with the white house, doesnt talk to people there, there was no sense of a thaw. So he may have a long way to go if that is his strategy. We have a bit of that ready to run later in our hour tonight. A terrific conversation to start us off on a wednesday night. Our thanks to michael crowley, barbara mcquaid, and tom lobianco, really appreciate it. Our next guest was in that heated House Intelligence Committee meeting with steve bannon, he has a lot to say about claims of executive privilege for starters. The downdown is on to a potential Government Shutdown as republicans are for one fighting amongst themselves. A lot to get to as the 11th hour continues. When youve got. Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea heres pepto bismol ah. Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea my business was going nowhere. So i built this kickin new website with godaddy. Building a website in under an hour is easy 68 of people. Who have built their website using gocentral, did it in. Under an hour, and you can too. Type in your business or idea. Pick your favourite design. Personalize it with beautiful images. And. Youre done and now business is booming. 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I can only say that the congress of the United States, let alone our committee, cannot allow a precedent where the white house can simply say, with no invocation of privilege, that in a lawful investigation by congress, were simply going to deny congress information. That was congressman adam schiff of california, the top democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, talking about the possibility of another hearing with steve bannon. We are fortunate tonight to be joined by another democrat on that committee, congressman jim hymes of connecticut. Congressman, i know its been a long day, really appreciate you hanging out to talk to us tonight. Its been joked about, but a serious question. Was what bannon attempted with you guys yesterday so egregious that it actually caused bipartisanship to break out in the house Intel Committee . You know, we noted to each other across the table that it did take Steve Bannons assertion of a radically new idea of executive privilege to unite the democrats and the republicans on the committee. Because both sides were very, very disturbed by this idea that the transition, not even the presidency, but the transition and conversations not had with the president , which of course are protected by executive privilege, would be somehow an excuse not to testify before congress. Quite apart from the fact, it wont surprise you to know there was a copy or two of the famous book fire and fury in the room. And heres a book where steve bannon is talking to great excess and to the detriment of his own career to mr. Wolff but is refusing to testify to congress. So yeah, it was a bizarre moment to say the least. Well, for those of us who are laypeople and not lawyers, how do you play this how do you thread this . There must be some of you angry enough to threaten him with the hoosgow and hold him in contempt of congress. How do you get him to talk to you while retaining the sovereignty and sanctity of the Mueller Investigation which is concurrent . Its not so much the Mueller Investigation. There is periodic contact between the two investigations, because we dont want to step on each others toes. For example, you wouldnt want the congress to bestow immunity on somebody that mueller was going after. That hasnt happened, but theres very little contact. The issue really, and this is sort of a fundamental issue for the congress of the United States. Look, executive privilege exists for a reason. The president should be able to expect that his or her advisers are going to give unvarnished, straightup advice without the fear that somewhere down the road a prosecutor or congress is going to ask to hear whats in those conversations. Thats a conversation between the adviser and the president. This idea that during the transition anybody that steve bannon talked to, that that should somehow be kept from the congress, i would hope that my republican friends would remember that just not that long ago, in the benghazi investigation, they were calling secretary clinton and others. We now have this sort of set of things that you can claim not to testify. Today as has been reported mr. Lewandowski decided he didnt want to talk to congress about anything that hap