Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon is stepping down from his role as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the company announced Tuesday.
The announcement caps a tumultuous couple of weeks in which a book (Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury – Inside the Trump White House) was released quoting Bannon making disparaging remarks about Trump and his staff including Donald Trump Jr.
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In excerpts of Wolff’s book that were published online prior to the book’s release, Bannon was quoted calling a meeting between a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin and Donald Trump Jr. as well as two other White House officials as being “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
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Bannon is also quoted in the book saying the investigators looking into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia were “going to crack Don Jr. like an egg on national TV.”
After the details were made public, Trump immediately attacked Bannon, declared that “he lost his mind” when he was pushed out of the White House last August.
After days of silence amid withering criticism from his former colleagues and his largest benefactor, Bannon tried to make amends. He issued a statement Sunday praising the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., whom he was quoted accusing of treasonous behaviour in the book. Bannon did not apologize for his criticism of the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, with whom he had squabbled inside the West Wing.
Bannon then lost the backing of heavyweight GOP donor Rebekah Mercer, a Trump backer who is co-owner of Breitbart News.
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Bannon’s departure from Breitbart came as a shock to some of his allies. One told the Associated Press Bannon was telling people as recently as Monday that he expected to stay on.
There is no word yet on when he will leave the company but the statement says he stay on to help with the transition.
Bannon had served in the role since 2012, although he had briefly stepped away to serve as the president’s adviser.
“I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform,” Bannon said.
With files from Associated Press
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