Bannon Overstated His Case, Losing Credbility. It Wasn't Treason.

Steve Bannon

Public figures often exaggerate and, when they do, it often helps them gain prominence. At the same time, overstating your case often hurts you in the long run. In a CNN article, former White House advisor Steve Bannon was quoted to say:

"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 continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."

This referred to a meeting that Donald Trump, Jr. had with a Russian lawyer who promised to provide negative information about Hillary Clinton. Bannon's quotation is from Michael Wolff's newly released book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. The quotation seems to have harmed Bannon's career as a spokesman for the racist movement often called the alt-right, of which he had boasted to be a leader. He lost the support of major conservative donor Rebekah Mercer, who seemed upset that Bannon was disloyal to President Donald Trump.

So, let's talk about exaggeration. The United States Constitution defines treason like this:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in

US Constitution, Article 3

adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

Donald Trump, Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer (and other persons) clearly did not meet the constitutional definition. For one thing, the United States is not at war with Russia, so Russia is not an enemy in the constitutional sense.

Still, any objective person has to see the meeting in a bad light. Russia and the United States have long had a strained relationship. Anyone who reads spy novels should recognize the meeting as a classic Russian penetration move.

So, Bannon was right that the meeting was unpatriotic, and certainly Donald Trump, Jr. should have promptly reported the meeting to American authorities. It was not, however, treason. This enabled White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders to call Bannon's accusation "ridiculous." She was right. It was not only wrong but silly for Bannon to say that Donald Trump, Jr. committed treason. The rest of Bannon's accusations, however, although expressed in excessively colorful language, seem to be not only true, but obvious. By making one overstated accusation, Bannon destroyed the credibility of his other, well-founded accusations.

Conservative donors would have abandoned Bannon in any case. They don't seem to tolerate the slightest deviation from herd loyalty, much less wholesale accusations. Still, had Bannon spoken accurately, he could have retained more credibility.

I have written earlier about the harmful consequences of overstating your case. Speakers who exaggerate lose credibility, which can be more important in the long run than the short-term shock value they gain when they overstate. We live in an era where everybody, including conservatives, takes language very literally. Speakers need to be careful.


Images: Steve Bannon, cropped from a White House photo; Constitution, cropped from National Archives.