Steve Bannon asked to be paid back for legal fees from the Russia investigation.

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Steve Bannon racked up more than $1 million in legal fees during the Russia investigation — then asked Trump's DOJ to reimburse him

By C. Ryan Barber



As President Donald Trump reluctantly prepared to leave the White House, his onetime chief strategist Steve Bannon asked the Department of Justice for a taxpayer-funded reimbursement for the hefty legal fees he incurred in connection with the Russia investigation, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"It is our understanding that the White House supports reimbursing Mr. Bannon's attorneys' fees," Bannon's defense lawyer William Burck wrote on New Year's Eve to the Justice Department. "We are in the process of obtaining a written statement confirming the White House's agreement and will provide it to you as soon as possible."

Burck provided invoices to DOJ dating back to early 2018 with an almost hour-by-hour chronicle of his work on Bannon's behalf during the Russia investigation.

An Insider review of the invoices showed Bannon racked up more than $1 million in legal fees between 2018 and 2020 as he sat for hours of questioning from the special counsel Robert Mueller's team, responded to congressional inquiries about Russian interference in the 2016 election, and testified in the November 2019 trial of the longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.

It was during that same time period that Bannon became involved in a fundraising effort called We Build the Wall, which claimed to support Trump's signature effort to erect a wall along the US border with Mexico. In August, federal prosecutors charged Bannon with defrauding donors. They alleged that despite his promise that "100 percent" of the funds would be used for wall construction, he personally received more than $1 million, much of which he used for personal expenses.

Trump's Justice Department never acted on Bannon's bid for the reimbursement of his legal fees. In an email to Insider, Burck said the Biden-led Justice Department denied Bannon's request.

Brian Boynton, the acting DOJ civil-division head, made the denial decision, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The department's civil division handles requests from current and former government officials for the reimbursement of outside attorney's fees. When DOJ approves reimbursements, it generally does so at a fraction of the hourly rates charged by premier white-collar defense lawyers.

Bannon could not be reached for comment.

'The Russia Probe's most popular lawyer'

Burck's pursuit of a reimbursement for Bannon came two months after the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel found that the attorney general has the power to authorize such payments.

In an October opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel said current or former federal government officials could be reimbursed for their attorney's fees if they met with the Mueller team "under threat of subpoena about information the person acquired in the course of his government duties." The office's opinion also said "a number of current and former federal employees interviewed by the Special Counsel are expected to make requests for reimbursement of attorney's fees."

But only Bannon's bid for reimbursement surfaced from a public-records request seeking documentation of former Mueller witnesses asking the Justice Department to cover attorney's fees.

In his December 31 letter to the Justice Department, Burck said Bannon "paid and is responsible for paying the attorneys' fees and costs and that he has not been reimbursed, in whole or in part, by insurance or any legal defense fund." Burck added that Bannon was not a subject or target of the Mueller investigation.

Bannon had been subpoenaed by Mueller's team before ultimately agreeing to be interviewed by the special counsel's office rather than testifying before a grand jury. He was among several high-profile Trump associates whom Burck represented in the Mueller investigation.

Burck, a top partner at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, also advised Trump's first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who emerged as a key witness in the special-counsel investigation.

On his law firm's website, Burck advertises that he was "referred to in the press as 'the Russia Probe's most popular lawyer.'" Outside the Russia investigation, Burck has defended the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and serves as the post-presidency legal liaison to George W. Bush and his official White House papers.

Earlier this month, Burck accompanied McGahn to Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview where he took questions from the House Judiciary Committee about Trump's efforts to impede the Russia investigation. McGahn agreed in May to appear for a transcribed interview, in a compromise with House Democrats and the Justice Department that marked a conclusion to a two-year legal battle over his testimony.

Burck declined to comment on why he did not seek reimbursement on behalf of McGahn and Priebus.

Billable hours

The invoices turned over to the Justice Department provide a new, detailed portrait of Burck's representation of Bannon in the Russia investigation. In the first month alone, Burck and his firm charged Bannon more than $230,000 as they prepared Trump's former strategist for his appearance before the special counsel's office, according to the records obtained from the Justice Department.

In January 2018, Burck recorded calls with Bannon, the special counsel's office, the White House, the House Intelligence Committee, and Abbe Lowell, the prominent white-collar defense lawyer who represented Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Russia investigation. Burck said in the same invoice that he met with Lowell later in January 2019 as Bannon's interview with the special counsel's office neared.

On one of the days in January 2018, Burck billed Bannon for 10 hours in connection with his interview before the House Intelligence Committee. The Justice Department blacked out the hourly rates of Burck and other lawyers at Quinn Emanuel.

In March 2018, Bannon received a bill for $420,000 covering expenses surrounding his February 2018 appearances before the special counsel's office. Burck billed Bannon for nine hours on February 12, 2018, in connection with "SC interview." On February 14, 2018, he billed again for "SC interview," this time for 10 hours.

The following year, Burck logged phone calls with Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow, and Quinn Emanuel lawyers billed Bannon for time spent preparing him to testify at the Stone trial. At the trial, Bannon testified that he viewed Stone as the "access point" between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, which released a trove of hacked Democratic emails in the run-up to the 2016 election that were damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Stone was found guilty of obstructing a congressional inquiry, lying under oath, and tampering with a witness and later sentenced to more than three years in prison. Trump commuted the sentence before Stone set foot in prison and then pardoned him in December.

At the time of Stone's pardon, Bannon was facing criminal charges alleging he defrauded donors to We Build the Wall as early as 2019. Burck appeared as Bannon's defense lawyer in that case but withdrew in November, a day after Bannon suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.

In the final hours of Trump's presidency, Bannon received a pardon. But his legal expenses from the Russia investigation remained his to bear.

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