WASHINGTON _ The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, which has been probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, must wait a little longer before hearing from Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist.
Bannon was expected to testify behind closed doors Tuesday in response to a subpoena, but he was granted a one-week delay.
That's around the same time he's also expected to meet with prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is leading a separate criminal investigation into the Russian meddling and whether anyone in President Donald Trump's orbit broke the law.
When Bannon testified to the House committee Jan. 16, he refused to answer a wide range of questions regarding his experiences in the presidential transition team, inside the White House until he was ousted in August, and his interactions with Trump since then.
The committee responded by slapping Bannon with a subpoena. He still declined to answer the panel's questions, saying White House lawyers needed to first negotiate the scope of the questions with the committee.
In a statement Tuesday, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the panel, said Bannon's lawyer informed the committee this week that the White House had barred Bannon from testifying "beyond a set of 14 yes-or-no questions the White House had pre-approved."
Schiff did not say what the 14 questions were but said Congress should consider holding Bannon in contempt, a federal misdemeanor, if he does not answer the committee's questions. The full House would have to approve that charge, however, and it then would be up to the Justice Department whether to prosecute.
The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Monday to release a Democratic rebuttal to a Republican memo that was declassified last Friday.
Republicans say their memo shows the FBI and Justice Department misled a secret surveillance court during the early stages of the Russia probe. Democrats say the GOP memo is deliberately misleading and was intended to discredit the Mueller investigation.
