The White House believed that it had reached an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee that would limit the scope of the panel’s questions for Stephen Bannon solely to his time on Trump’s presidential campaign, a White House official told CNBC.
The official said that the White House had met with staffers on the intelligence panel ahead of Bannon’s interview, and determined that the committee would not ask Bannon about his time on Trump’s presidential transition team or in the White House. Bannon served for a period as Trump’s chief strategist in the White House.
But when Bannon’s lawyer informed the White House during his interview on Tuesday that the panel was asking about issues related to the former chief strategist’s time in the White House and on the transition team, he was instructed to decline answering those questions.
“We said ‘Hey, hey, pump the brakes,'” the official told CNBC. “We said to Bannon, ‘Don’t answer those questions because we haven’t agreed to that scope under the process.'”
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JUST IN: White House accuses House panel of breaking ground rules with questions in Bannon interview https://t.co/uZuMdlwQ0K pic.twitter.com/0SZetxR0bf
— The Hill (@thehill) January 17, 2018
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