Trump Jr-Russian lawyer meet treasonous: Steve Bannon

In a potentially combustible new book, US President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has roasted his former boss’s administration. Speaking to author

Michael Wolff

of the much anticipated political tome, ‘Fire And Fury: Inside Trump White House’, Bannon describes the meeting between Trump Jr and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the Trump Tower as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.

Bannon tells the author, “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” referring to the June 2016 meeting between Trump’s son, his son-in-law

Jared Kushner

, then campaign manager Paul Manafort and Veselnitskaya. He said, “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room ... – with no lawyers..

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad sh**, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Such a meeting, Bannon said, should have taken place only “in a

Holiday Inn

in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Then any information could be “dump(ed) … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication.”

“You never see it, you never know it, because you don’t need to … But that’s the brain trust that they had.”

Trump’s decision to fire FBI director

James Comey

didn’t go down well with Bannon. He dismissed the possibility of a quick end to the probe by special counsel

Robert Mueller

into the Russian hand in the 2016 election. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f***ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner… It’s as plain as a hair on your face,” Bannon is quoted in the book.

On reports of Duetsche Bank’s hefty loans to Kushner concerns, he said, “It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner sh**. The Kushner sh** is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.” Blasting White House for its apparent indifference, he said, “They’re sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five (hurricane).”