'Sounds like a cop out': Bannon attorney clashes with CNN's Keilar over executive privilege
Appearing on CNN the morning after his client turned himself in to federal authorities to face two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, the attorney for Steve Bannon clashed repeatedly with the "New Day" host over his client's claim of executive privilege.
With attorney David Schoen initially joking with the CNN host by beginning the interview by praising her "Before you beat me up..." the two got right into Bannon's refusal to provide testimony and documents to the House committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection.
"Trump has never invoked executive privilege," the CNN host began. "You're saying he sent a letter to the former attorney for Bannon, but he has not actually invoked formally executive privilege with the January 6th committee."
READ: 'We're taking down the Biden regime': Steve Bannon urges fans to fight as he surrenders for contempt
"Frankly with all due respect, I disagree with you," the attorney shot back. "This is how privilege is invoked. Privilege holder identifies and communicates with the person who has been directed to provide what he believes to be his privileged information, and that person acts accordingly."
"I want to say this, I think for my duty of the court, I ordinarily don't comment on pending cases. In this case, the attorney general decided to put out a press release saying this case reflects the principles of equal justice under the law. it absolutely does not," he continued. " I'm sure you're aware that since 2008, four people have been cited for contempt by the house; not one of them was ever prosecuted criminally, and that goes across the board in different administrations. Eric Holder, Lois Lerner, Harriet Miers, Josh Bolton. The idea this is a crime is absolutely outrageous."
"To be clear, David, are you comparing -- are you comparing your client to people who worked in the executive branch in those cases?" host Keilar pressed.
READ: Steve Bannon requests virtual hearing -- and will be allowed to ask to leave the country
"Well, first of all, according to the Justice Department themselves, in the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, the executive privilege applies to former executive department officers and the reason for that is obvious," he shot back.
In a later exchange, when Schoen defended his client's right to avoid testimony, leading the CNN host to admonish him with "Sounds like a cop out," she asked, "The former president, look, he may have some interesting arguments to make when it comes to executive privilege. He's not formally invoked it when it comes to testimony regarding the January 6th committee, to be very clear on that. But Steve Bannon cannot invoke executive privilege when it is a conversation that he is having with people who are not the president, who are not part of the executive branch, Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani. those are things that are completely fair game. Why hasn't he complied?"
"Here's the problem," he explained after they talked over each other. "Here's the problem. This comes up regularly when privilege is at issue in depositions. Here, Mr. Bannon -- there could be questions asked that have to do with privileged areas and not privileged areas. If he showed up and started answering questions, privilege could be violated. All he asked was if he were to show up, could a representative of the purported privilege holder be present to invoke privilege on a question by question basis. He was told the committee rules do not permit that, and so he wasn't allowed to do that. So you can't just show up and then take a chance that privilege things could come up but the privilege holder can't be there and that's simply unfair."
READ: Steve Bannon's criminal indictment is the best thing that's ever happened to him
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