A little more than a week after Bannon’s new job was announced, Politico published a 1996 police report from when Bannon’s ex-wife said he grabbed her by the neck then destroyed a phone as she tried to call 911.
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Police arrived to find Piccard visibly upset, with red marks on her neck and wrist, the report said.
Court records also show that Bannon faced misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness charges over the incident.
A spokesperson for Bannon, identified as Alexandra Preate, told Politico that “he has a great relationship with the twins, he has a great relationship with the ex-wife, he still supports them”.
The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries about the police report.
“It just undermines any effort they are pursuing to try and soften him up when he surrounds himself with people like that”, said Katie Packer, a Republican strategist who vigorously opposes Trump. She claimed that her former husband attacked her in their California home in 1996 and “arranged for me to leave town until the trial was over and it was ok for me to return home”.
Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News who was brought on as Trump’s campaign CEO last week, is registered to vote in Miami-Dade County, but the address at which he is registered is a vacant house that is slated for demolition, the property’s owner, Luis Guevara, told The Guardian. Piccard told police she and Bannon had a turbulent 6 1/2-year relationship. It is also alleged that Bannon broke the phone when she attempted to call the authorities.
Packer, who served as deputy campaign manager to Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, said Bannon would have never passed the vetting process Romney’s team used when they made hiring decisions.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Badolato has also written for Breitbart News, the right-leaning website Bannon heads.
Not to mention that Trump’s ex-wife Ivana accused him of sexual assault during their divorce proceedings in the ’90s – he denied it (and Ivana now says stories about her previous accusation are “totally without merit”).
“I restrained him and told him that it was not acceptable to hit our daughter (he believes in corporal punishment)”, Piccard wrote. The two got married on April 14, 1995 and later divorced. The particular incident that is causing this stir now in political circles happened about 20 years back. ‘I was told that I could go anywhere in the world’. When Bannon started to leave, she asked for a credit card for groceries, but he refused and went to his auto, Piccard told police.
“He pulled her down, as if he was trying to pull [her] into the auto, over the door”, the report said, adding that Bannon also “grabbed at [her] neck” and that she struck at his face to get free.
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“He pulled her down as if he was trying to pull her into the vehicle, over the door”, the report said.
