(Bloomberg) — There’s plenty of fight left in Steve Bannon. He’s even saved some for his attorneys.
(Bloomberg) — There’s plenty of fight left in Steve Bannon. He’s even saved some for his attorneys.
Citing “irreconcilable differences,” they asked a judge on Thursday for permission to withdraw from his defense against charges he cheated contributors to a privately funded US-Mexico border wall out of more than $15 million.
“There has been a breakdown in direct communications between Mr. Bannon and his attorneys,” his lawyer David Schoen told New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan at a hearing in Manhattan. Schoen told the judge that Bannon “is refusing to engage with his counsel.”
Schoen and John Mitchell have represented the longtime Donald Trump ally and architect of his 2016 election victory since Bannon’s first hearing in the case last summer. Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day as president in a federal case that also focused on the project, We Build the Wall, in which Bannon had been indicted.
On Thursday the two lawyers told Merchan that their client has refused to communicate directly with them from the start and had begun to go through a third lawyer who has represented him in other matters.
Merchan said that although defendants have the right to choose their counsel, the judge’s role is “to ensure that defendant’s purported right is not to delay or obstruct judicial proceedings.” He set a deadline of Feb. 28 for Bannon to name new lawyers.
At one point the judge addressed Bannon directly, asking whether he understood his instructions.
“Yes, your honor,” Bannon replied.
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