An attorney for President Donald Trump is threatening legal action against Steve Bannon in the wake of incendiary comments made by the former White House chief strategist in a new book.
Charles Harder, representing both the President and the Trump campaign, said in a statement released Wednesday night that Bannon’s contributions to a new book by Michael Wolff “give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander, and breach of his written confidentiality and non-disparagement agreement with our clients.”
In the book, of which details were published Wednesday, Bannon called a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., top Trump campaign associates and a Russian lawyer “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
“Legal action is imminent,” the statement from Harder says.
Bannon did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment Thursday morning.
Trump harshly responded to Bannon’s comments Wednesday, saying his former top adviser has “lost his mind.”
“Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country,” Trump said.
Bannon hasn’t pushed back against Trump’s statement. Speaking on Breitbart radio Thursday morning, he said he still supports Trump’s agenda, and on Wednesday, he called the President “a great man.”
Throughout his life as a public figure, Trump has often threatened legal action over media coverage he sees as unfavorable. He threatened to sue The New York Times in 2016 after it published the accounts of two women who claimed Trump touched them inappropriately, but his lawyers never filed a lawsuit.