Trump Campaign Chief Stephen Bannon Charged With Domestic Violence In 1996

Stephen Bannon, erstwhile Breitbart shitbag, recently took over as campaign chief for Donald Trump after a series of power struggles cost Trump’s first two campaign managers their jobs. 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. About two months after the fight in Santa Monica, Calif., he was charged with a series of misdemeanors, including battery and dissuading a witness. The New York Post the charges.

Here’s how the police report describes what happened. The fight happened on New Year’s Day. Bannon’s wife asked him for the American Express card so she could buy groceries. He told her to write a check, she told police, and she followed him out to the car. After an argument in which she threatened to file for a divorce, she spat at him, then Bannon reached out of the car, grabbed her wrist, and pulled as if trying to pull her into the car. She told police he then grabbed her by the neck and tried to get her into the car. She managed to break free and ran inside.

Once she grabbed the phone and ran past the couple’s infant twins, Bannon “jumped over her and the twins” then smashed the phone, according to the police report. She managed to call 911 before he broke the phone. When Santa Monica police arrive, they wrote in the report that she seemed “very upset” and that took a while to calm down.

In the police report, Bannon’s ex-wife says that he was occasionally physically abusive early in their relationship. They married in April 1995 and she filed for divorce less than two years later, in January 1997. As for the police case, Politico said that Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness. But a judge dismissed it in August 1996 after Bannon’s ex-wife didn’t show up to testify, according to the report.

Politico added that she kept custody of the twins, and that Bannon was forced to pay out child support to the three of them, in addition to the payments he was already making to a previous ex-wife and child.

You can find the police report, obtained via Politico, below or by clicking here.

[ Politico]