Bannon's Lawyer Bails Because He's Now A Witness In His Trial

One of Steve Bannon's lawyers has had to abandon his client because he is going to be called as a witness in his upcoming trial. This isn't exactly a common thing to happen, and it just shows how tightly-knit Bannon likes to keep his people. It could also leave Bannon in an unpleasant position if the judge rules that attorney-client privilege doesn't apply due to a crime being alleged. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Recently Robert Costello, who was serving as Steve Bannon's lead attorney in the, uh, criminal contempt trial that he is currently facing, submitted a letter to the court asking to be let go as Bannon's lawyer and the reason, well, let's not spoil it. Let me read from his court, filing this from Robert Costello. Again, Bannon's lead lead attorney, since it appears there will be a trial. And since it appears that at this point in time, I might be called as a witness. I must reluctantly ask the court to grant my request, to withdraw as counsel for Bannon.

So Bannon's own lawyer may have to testify as a witness in this whole criminal contempt thing, which of course stems from Bannon refusing to comply with the subpoena for the January 6th committee. The DOJ actually acted on that criminal referral they've ignored the other ones, but they did go after Bannon and Bannon is now going to face trial for refusing to comply for it. According to various different reports. Uh, Robert Costello has, of course been Bannon's lead attorney. They've been talking strategy. Costello is pretty much the only guy that like knows all the facts of the case. But what I haven't been able to find is why he might be called as a witness. See that part still escapes me. I, I, I can't, I've, I've gone through article after article legal analysis of this. I can't find why Costello himself might be called as a witness.

So that to me is a, is a big, uh, question mark that I would love to have answered eventually. And I'm sure once the trial comes out, if Costello does testify, we'll get our answers about that. But what we do know so far about this, you know, forthcoming trial is that Bannon has attempted multiple times to get it thrown out that has failed. He's actually tried to blame his lawyer, Costello himself for making him refuse to comply. The courts didn't buy that ridiculous argument. So it's probably for the best that Costello does get off this case. I mean, band had already tried to throw you under the bus once, dude, I don't know why you didn't bail on him right then, but maybe, maybe that is what you're gonna be called to be a witness for. Maybe you did advise him to do this in which case I would say that's pretty crappy legal advice. But the biggest problem of course is because this is a criminal trial. You know, even if it's just for something contempt of Congress, which isn't, you know, overtly serious, it's serious cuz it's crime, but it's not, you know, it's not like he killed somebody, but it is criminal in nature. Therefore Costello and Bannon may not enjoy attorney client privilege

With their communications. If of course Costello is uh, called to be a witness. So that's where this could really come back to bite Bannon. So now not only is he shorthanded on the legal side, lost the guy that had been working with him from the beginning on everything here, but now he may even lose attorney client privilege, which of course isn't going to end well for them. If that happens.