Former White House Strategist Bannon Out as Breitbart Chairman

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is out as executive chairman of Breitbart News Network, following nearly a week of “Fire and Fury” after the former presidential adviser’s remarks to author Michael Wolff were published.

Bannon had been Breitbart chairman since 2012, except for the period he worked for President Donald Trump as chief strategist. He returned to the news site in August after the White House let him go.

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But even his tenure at Breitbart became rocky after Bannon got the news site to throw its full weight behind troubled Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore. In a heated and costly special election on Dec. 12, 2017, to replace Jeff Sessions, Moore became the first Alabama Republican to lose a Senate race since 1992.

The excerpted remarks from Wolff, however, were apparently the final straw for the Breitbart board of directors. Wolff quoted Bannon as saying Donald Trump Jr. committed “treason” by meeting in the Trump Tower with a Russian attorney in June 2016. Bannon also appeared to accuse Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, of money laundering through his real estate empire.

It is unclear whether the Breitbart board forced Bannon out, or if he decided to resign on his own. The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that the board was angered by the excerpts from Wolff’s just-released book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”

The board includes Rebekah Mercer and her father, Robert, both conservative billionaires who supported Trump for president and the Breitbart media project.

Related: Bannon Offers Multiple Apologies for Quotes in Wolff Book

Late Tuesday afternoon, Bannon was quoted by Breitbart as saying, “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.”

Breitbart CEO Larry Solov thanked Bannon for his work, saying, “Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish.”

PoliZette White House writer Jim Stinson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.

(photo credit, homepage image: Steve Bannon & Matt Schlapp, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore; photo credit, article image: Steve Bannon, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)