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(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
If you get convicted, you don’t have to pay your lawyers, right? Isn’t that the rule?
That appears to be what deplorable podcaster Steve Bannon believes, according to a collections suit filed in the Supreme Court of New York by his longtime lawyer Robert Costello of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. The complaint, which was first reported by Reuters, puts Bannon’s outstanding tab with the firm at $480,487.87. It also seeks to recoup the costs associated with sending the bill out to collections.
Stiffing your counsel is an odd move for a guy with a pending federal criminal appeal of his contempt of Congress conviction plus an upcoming criminal fraud trial in New York on his home brew border wall scam. But the Daily Beast broke the news ten days ago that Bannon wasn’t paying his multiple attorneys and owed significant outstanding balances to both Costello and M. Evan Corcoran, both of whom represented him in the contempt of Congress case last summer.
It’s a particularly odd move with respect to Costello, who has been a fellow traveler in MAGA world, even to the extent of getting embroiled in controversy himself. For instance, Costello, who previously represented Rudy Giuliani, worked with Giuliani and Bannon to get the Hunter Biden laptop files to the New York Post before the election. Costello ran interference for Bannon with the January 6 Select Committee, and then, when Bannon refused to testify, made some perhaps exaggerated claims to the FBI which put the attorney in the FBI’s crosshairs and on the pointy end of a warrant for his communications. Costello even attempted to take blame on himself by helping his client put forward an advice of counsel defense.
And for his pains, he’s having to dun his former client, who had had substantial assets and revenue streams back in 2017 when he filed a financial disclosure to go work in the White House — and that was before he started his War Room podcast to spew hate speech for fun and profit.
Meanwhile, Bannon’s looking for new lawyers in his New York state prosecution, with his current attorneys David Schoen and John Mitchell requesting to be removed from the case due to a breakdown in communications with the defendant.
“We’re not providing effective assistance of counsel,” Mitchell complained to Justice Juan Merchan, who gave the defendant until the end of this month to find new lawyers.
Well … good luck to him. Telling your prior attorneys go pound sand is a weird way to get highly competent counsel to take your case, but we’ve been led to believe that the scrofulous shitposter is actually a master strategist so, we’re sure he’s got a really good plan up one of his many sleeves.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
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