Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been called to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation of possible ties between the Russian government and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, The New York Times said Tuesday.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued the subpoena last week, the Times reported, citing a "person with direct knowledge of the matter."

Mueller's office declined to respond to a query from EFE asking for comment on the story.

Bannon went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify before a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The special counsel's approach to Bannon follows the publication of a book in which the former Trump aide is quoted as criticizing Donald Trump Jr. - the president's son - for having met in the summer of 2016 with a Russian lawyer purported to have damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

In Michael Wolf's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," Bannon is said to described Trump Jr.'s actions as "treasonous" and to have predicted that the focus of Mueller's probe would eventually come down to money laundering.

The president denounced his former chief strategist Bannon after excerpts from the book were published and the billionaires behind right-wing Web site Breitbart News fired Bannon from his position as head of the operation.