Lewandowski: Trump told him to curtail inquiry
WASHINGTON — Corey Lewandowski, under sharp questioning by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, confirmed that President Donald Trump had once asked him to help pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions to curtail the scope of the Russia investigation, but said he did not believe he had been asked to do anything illegal.
After initially stonewall- ing Democrats’ questions, Lewandowski appeared to change strategies, confirming the details of a key episode from the Mueller investigation — and even providing new information that was not in the special counsel’s report. Under questioning by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., Lewandowski — Trump’s former campaign manager and continued confidant — said he never relayed the message to Sessions because he went on a beach vacation with his children.
The episode, which occurred in June 2017, is one of several instances of possible obstruction of justice documented by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
As Mueller recounts in his report, Trump met with Lewa n dowski two days after he directed Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel at the time, to fire the special counsel. This time, Trump criticized Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. He then dictated a message for Lewand- owski to deliver to Sessions.
It said that Sessions should give a speech announcing that Trump had been treated unfairly and that he would limit the scope of the special counsel investigation.
“Didn’t you think it was a little strange the president would sit down with you oneon-one and ask you to do something that you knew was against the law?” asked Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “Did that strike you as strange?”
Lewandowski disagreed: “I didn’t think the president asked me to do anything illegal.”
Lewandowski signaling that he planned to use the hearing to burnish his own political brand while fiercely defending Trump.
“I had the privilege — and it was a privilege — of help- ing transform the Trump campaign from a dedicated but small, makeshift organi- zation to a historically and unprecedented political juggernaut,” he said in his comments, which began by branding Democrats’ inquiry into whether to impeach Trump “very unfair.”
Democrats’ questioning of Lewandowski was never going to be amicable.
Lewandowski made clear he intended to do whatever he could to slow down the proceedi n gs, including demanding that Democrats read him the section of the Mueller report about which they were questioning him.
When Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the committee’s chairman, asked him if it was correct that he had met alone with Trump in the Oval Office in the summer of 2017, Lewandowski balked.
“Could you repeat the exact language of the report, sir?” he said. “Congressman, I would like you to refresh my memory of the report so I could read along,” he said, noting that he had not brought along the document.
Republicans asserted that, while Lewandowski was running Trump’s presidential campaign, Obama administration officials did not give the campaign a briefing about Russian attempts to interfere with the election.
Lewandowski said it was “unfathomable to me that they didn’t contact a major political nominee for president ...and inform them of potential threats against election process in 2016.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, piled on, saying that the FBI was “trying to trap the president.”