Bannon’s comments about the Russia probe are really going to piss Trump off

Even Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s fired former chief strategist, thought the infamous June 2016 meeting between Russian operatives and Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower was a bad idea.

In Michael Wolff’s new tell-all political blockbuster, Bannon called the meeting “treasonous” and “unpatriotic,” according to the Guardian, which obtained an early copy of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House."

“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 on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon said. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

The book is based on over 200 interviews with the president and people within and close to his early administration. The interviews expose the contempt that many of Trump’s closest associates have for him, as well as the rifts between advisers that plagued the early days of the presidency. For his part, Bannon was forced out of the White House after multiple disagreements with Trump.

Besides the criticism of the Trump Tower meeting, Bannon also offered his candid predictions on where the Russia investigation will lead.

“They’re going to crack Don Jr. like an egg on national TV,” Bannon told Wolff.

Donald Trump Jr., President Trump’s oldest son, had admitted to setting up the meeting between the Russians and the Trump campaign staff who met with them. When approached by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya — through an intermediary who said she had incriminating information on then-presidential rival Hillary Clinton — Don Jr. replied “I love it” and scheduled the meeting.

Don Jr. and his attorneys contend he did “nothing wrong.”

Though Bannon has criticized Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, Wolff’s new book, according to the Guardian’s take, portrays him as knowing full well that the probe won’t end well for Trump or key members of his campaign and early administration.

“You realize where this is going,” Bannon told Wolff. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first, and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner .… It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

Paul Manafort, who had a three-month tenure as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, has already been charged with tax fraud and money laundering in connection with the political work he did for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party. He pled not guilty.

“They’re sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five,” Bannon told Wolff regarding the White House’s lackadaisical attitude to the Russia investigation and high hopes that everything will blow over. Here are some of the other tidbits the Guardian pulled from the book:

• Bannon’s relationship with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who are Jewish, has been fraught, and he refers to the couple as “Javanka.”
• “It is a war between the Jews and the non-Jews,” former secretary of state Henry Kissinger told Wolff regarding the internal power struggles between Bannon and Jared and Ivanka.
• “He’s not only crazy, he’s stupid,” Thomas Barrack Jr, a billionaire who has long been a close friend of the president, told Wolff, referring to Trump.