Steve Bannon's lawyers accused the DOJ of violating “Costello’s privacy rights, the 6th Amendments right of Mr. Costello’s other clients, and the privacy rights of other ‘Robert Costellos’ who had that name, but were not Mr. Bannon’s attorney.”
When the FBI wanted the email and phone records for Steve Bannon’s lawyer Bob Costello, they didn’t just take the extraordinary and legally questionable step of subpoenaing his records. Bannon’s legal team is now claiming the FBI actually laid down a dragnet that caught the private information of Bob Costellos of all ages across the country.
The Daily Beast previously reported how the FBI potentially crossed a red line by targeting Bannon’s lawyer—a rare step during a criminal case that’s only justified if the lawyer is also involved in a crime. Bannon has been criminally charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to testify or turn over documents to the House Jan. 6 Committee, which is investigating the insurrection that illegally tried to keep former President Donald Trump in office.