Bannon will not appear before House Intelligence Committee Tuesday
The former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, was scheduled to be interviewed behind closed doors Tuesday by the House intelligence committee, but the meeting has now been delayed.
Republican congressman Mike Conaway of Texas said earlier that Bannon was under active subpoena and scheduled to appear as part of the committee's investigation into Russian election interference.
But two people familiar with the panel's schedule say that meeting has now been put off. They declined to be named because the schedule is private.
Following their unanimous vote to release a Democratic rebuttal of the GOP FISA memo, several members of the Intelligence Committee expressed little certainty to CBS News that Bannon would be appearing before them.
CBS News' Olivia Andrzejczak Gazis reports that a few members also said they "thought" Hope Hicks was coming in this week, but given the threat of a shutdown, unknowns about Bannon and the president's decision on the Democrats' memo, it remains an open question.
A meeting last week was also postponed. Bannon's lawyer has been negotiating with the committee and the White House about the interview's terms. At issue is whether the White House will allow Bannon to answer questions about his time in the Trump administration.
Bannon had previously appeared before the committee in early January, marking his first public appearance after he was effectively removed as executive chairman of Breitbart News.
During that testimony, Bannon had refused to answer a broad array of queries about his time working for Mr. Trump, provoking a subpoena from the panel's Republican chairman.
Ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, said in a statement on Tuesday that the White House's continued prohibition of Bannon from testifying is "unacceptable."
He added, "The Committee's subpoena remains in effect and his interview has been rescheduled for next week. Testifying before the Special Counsel does not obviate Mr. Bannon's obligations under the subpoena issued by the Committee. Should Bannon maintain his refusal to return and testify fully to all questions, the Committee should begin contempt proceedings to compel his testimony."
Schiff said that Bannon was barred from "testifying to the Committee beyond a set of fourteen yes-or-no questions the White House had pre-approved."
The congressional subpoena came the same day The New York Times reported that Bannon - a former far-right media executive and recently scorned political adversary of the president's - has been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before a federal grand jury.
