Steve Bannon to Head Russia “War Room” Legal Team

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Summary: White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon will take charge of the group created to handle any Russia misconduct allegations.

Former Breitbart News executive and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner will be teaming up to beat down the Russia allegations. President Trump has been fighting Russia misconduct allegations since before he took office with the allegations trickling down his administration to other staff members.

  

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Bannon will be leading the “war room,” a room filled with high-powered lawyers, researchers, and surrogates with the purpose of figuring out how to escape connections to Russia. They will do this by responding, rebutting, and refuting bad press and legal issues tied to the investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy told Axios, “Steve is super savvy dealing with the media and dealing with crises.”

While Bannon is not a lawyer himself, he will be in charge of a legal team of seasoned and well-known litigators. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy stated, “A big legal team, even one with people with titanic reputations, can greatly benefit the person represented by that big team. The Justice Department can throw endless resources at cases, so it makes a difference to be capable of matching them.”

Another confirmed member of the team is Trump’s long-time attorney Marc Kasowitz. Others rumored include Robert Guiffra, Theodore Olson, and Reid Weingarten. Guiffra, as a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, has been a top attorney for Volkswagen. He has dealt with the lawsuits thrown at the company after they cheated on diesel emissions tests in the U.S.

Some question how effective the group will be when it is comprised of people accustomed to being the leader. Quinn Emanuel Urguhart & Sullivan partner John Quinn told Fox News, “I can’t imagine that would work out very well.”

Weingarten once proclaimed to be guided by the principle of bringing “peace to this earth” due to his role as a “hard-core child of the 60s” but generally ends up representing big-time executives caught up in scandals. This has included Goldman Sachs and former Goldman banker Jon Corzine as well as exes with Enron, Tyco, Rite Aid, and WorldCom. His explanation for his defense of who many viewed were guilty was this, “I feel like I’m in the French Revolution, defending the nobility against the howling mob. They want to guillotine these people without any evidence.” Weingarten added in 2015, “These are all big-ego, extraordinarily successful people who find themselves dramatically at odds with Uncle Sam, because typically people don’t come to me unless the Justice Department wants to put them in prison for a long time and take all their money.”

The latest Trump administration member to be accused by the media of meeting with Russian officials is Trump’s son-in-law. Bannon was one of the first to question Kushner’s meetings even though Kushner has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing.

This entire Russia fiasco has given Bannon the opportunity to regain his status in the White House. After losing much of his influence to Kushner and others, leading the group will allow him to regain some power back. As one source told Jonathan Swan at Axios, “Obviously you want [unity] under different circumstances but it’s really united this team and helped bring clarity to their focus.”

Do you think there is a Russia problem or is it something the media has made up? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about the Russia allegations, read these articles:

• Jeff Sessions Recuses Himself from Any Trump Investigation
• Key Official Who Was Investigating Trump’s Ties to Russia Departing DOJ
• Trump Campaign Allegedly in Contact with Russians 18 Times in 2016

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