It’s unclear from the committee’s letter what Bannon and Prince might have lied about, but he and Prince have told conflicting stories about the Seychelles meeting. But investigators suspected that the men may have been seeking to arrange a clandestine back-channel between the incoming Trump administration and Moscow. No charges were filed in connection with the meetings. The committee also believed Prince, best known as the founder of the former mercenary company Blackwater and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, may have lied about his interactions with Dmitriev. Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment.Ī spokeswoman for Warner declined to comment.Īccording to the letter, the committee believed Bannon may have lied about his interactions with Erik Prince, a private security contractor Rick Gerson, a hedge fund manager and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russian sovereign fund.Īll were involved in closely scrutinized meetings in the Seychelles before Trump’s inauguration. It is not clear what action the Justice Department has taken on the referral. The letter, which has not before been made public, was sent July 19, 2019, to Deborah Curtis, a top prosecutor in the U.S. Those it identified as providing such conflicting testimony were the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. It also raised concerns about testimony provided by family members and confidants of President Trump that appeared to contradict information provided by a former deputy campaign chairman to Special Counsel Robert S. The case was referred to the federal prosecutors three months after Mueller’s report was released, but before he testified. Mueller III testified to the panel about his investigation.
15, 2020 A previous version of this article reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee referred the Bannon case to the U.S.
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