After belatedly joining Steve Bannon’s defense team as DOJ was collecting evidence about whether his claims matched the available evidence, Robert Costello is now asking to withdraw, citing a concern — one DOJ raised in a phone call on December 2, the same day he filed his notice of appearance — that he might have to serve as a witness.
The decision to withdraw just days before trial is interesting in any case.
All the more so given Costello’s claim that he has represented Bannon for the past three years. 
Maybe he has … maybe he has!
Curiously, though, that conflicts with the known timeline of how his relationship with Bannon came about. You’ll recall that until November 6, 2020, Bannon was ably represented — through a serially evolving story in the Mueller investigation — by Bill Burck. But then, on November 5, 2020, Bannon threatened to behead the FBI Director and the COVID Czar.
So Burck essentially fired Bannon. According to Burck’s court filing, Bannon was, at that point, hiring new counsel.
A month later, on December 11, 2020, at a time when according to public reports, Trump was offering pardons to those, like Bannon, implicated in the Build the Wall fraud, in exchange to those who helped his coup attempt, Costello filed his notice of appearance for Bannon — at least by context, he was the new counsel.
Maybe my math is off, but December 11, 2020 is less than three years ago — less than two, even!!
All that said, Costello — who was implicated in the Mueller investigation for attempting to broker a pardon to keep Michael Cohen silent — was being hired by someone roughly three years ago, though it wasn’t Bannon. It was this guy, Rudy Giuliani, the guy through whom Costello had previously attempted to broker a pardon.
The legal representation of Trumpsters is always so incestuous it’s hard to tell where representation for one person begins and the other ends (as a reminder, Bannon’s other two lawyers either used to — David Schoen — or reportedly still do — Evan Corcoran — also represent Trump). But at least according to Costello’s filing, he’s been representing both Bannon and Rudy all this time.