NBC News reports Steve Bannon finally met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team for a considerable amount of time over multiple days this week.
Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.
CNN:
Mueller's investigators were expected to ask Bannon about the firings of FBI Director James Comey and national security adviser Michael Flynn, people familiar with the inquiry previously told CNN.
Bannon answered all questions posed by the special counsel's team, this person said. No areas or questions were off limits.
Bannon's openness is a departure from his interaction with House Intelligence Committee, with which he met for a second time on Thursday after being issued a subpoena.
CNN:
... Bannon frustrated lawmakers from both parties by informing them that he had been instructed by the White House to invoke executive privilege to lawmakers on behalf of the President, and declined to answer questions about his time during the transition and in the administration. Bannon declined to answer a wide array of lawmakers' questions pertinent to the Russia investigation, prompting them to consider holding him in contempt.
During a closed-door meeting with the House Intelligence Committee that lasted nearly four hours, Bannon refused to answer any questions beyond 25 that had been pre-screened by the White House, senior Republican and Democratic committee members said. Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, suggested those questions were so narrowly drawn that they appeared intended to mislead lawmakers.
"There were questions along the lines of ‘Did you ever meet with X?’ And because the question had been written by the White House the answer was invariably ‘No,'" Schiff said. "When we asked the question, ‘Did you talk with ‘X?,' the answer was yes."
(...)
That left even senior committee Republicans unhappy. Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas, the Republican who leads the panel's Russia investigation, said he would discuss with House Speaker Paul Ryan whether to seek contempt charges against Bannon, who was Trump's chief strategist until he departed the White House last August.
(...)
"Contempt is a big deal and I don’t have unilateral control over that conversation," he said.
Ryan's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Schiff raised what he described as another potential conflict: Bannon's attorney William Burck also represents White House counsel Don McGahn, whose office advised the House on what questions Bannon would be able to answer. He said he has question about "counsel advising one witness based on instructions from another client."
Steve Bannon met with Mueller multiple times over the past week (NBC News)
Special counsel questioned Bannon this week (CNN)
Bannon limits answers to House after seeing Mueller (Politico)