Report: Senate Intelligence Committee investigating ex-Trump aide Bannon


The Senate Intelligence Committee is taking a closer look at Stephen Bannon's activities during the 2016 presidential election, including his role at Cambridge Analytica, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Bannon is a former White House adviser, and the committee is examining what he might know about contacts between two Trump campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, and Moscow. Last year, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians; during the campaign, he spoke with a professor who claimed Russians had "dirt" on Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, Reuters reports. In September, he was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Page, who has extensive business ties to Russia, has not been charged with anything.
Investigators also want to know about Bannon's time as vice president of Cambridge Analytica, a defunct data analysis company. He was there from June 2014 to August 2016, when he left to join the Trump campaign as a strategist. Cambridge Analytica collected the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent, and was hired by the Trump campaign to target potential voters.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Two people told Reuters staff investigators hope to interview Bannon in late November. Bannon's lawyer, William Burck, told Reuters the committee "has expressed an interest in interviewing Mr. Bannon as a witness, just as they have many other people involved in the Trump campaign. But the committee has never suggested that he's under investigation himself and to claim otherwise is recklessly false."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Judge bars Trump’s National Guard moves in Oregon
Speed Read In an emergency hearing, a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Portland
-
Museum head ousted after Trump sword gift denial
Speed Read Todd Arrington, who led the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, denied the Trump administration a sword from the collection as a gift for King Charles
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels
speed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Supreme Court rules for Fed’s Cook in Trump feud
Speed Read Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her role following Trump’s attempts to oust her
-
Judge rules Trump illegally targeted Gaza protesters
Speed Read The Trump administration’s push to arrest and deport international students for supporting Palestine is deemed illegal
-
Trump: US cities should be military ‘training grounds’
Speed Read In a hastily assembled summit, Trump said he wants the military to fight the ‘enemy within’ the US
-
US government shuts down amid health care standoff
Speed Read Democrats said they won’t vote for a deal that doesn’t renew Affordable Care Act health care subsidies
-
YouTube to pay Trump $22M over Jan. 6 expulsion
Speed Read The president accused the company of censorship following the suspension of accounts post-Capitol riot