Aide: Trump sought help to curb Mueller
Lewandowski says he didn’t believe request was illegal
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 stonewalling Democrats’ questions, Lewandowski appeared to abruptly 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 Lewandowski in the Oval Office two days after he directed Donald McGahn, 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 Lewandowski 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 one-on-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 curtly disagreed: “I didn’t think the president asked me to do anything illegal.”
Lewandowski began his appearance before the Judiciary Committee with remarks that sounded more like a campaign speech than testimony in a congressional investigation, signaling that he planned to use the hearing to burnish his own political brand while fiercely defending the president.
“I had the privilege — and it was a privilege — of helping transform the Trump campaign from a dedicated but small, makeshift organization to a historically and unprecedented political juggernaut,” Lewandowski said in his comments, which began by branding Democrats’ inquiry into whether to impeach Trump “very unfair.”
Lewandowski’s remarks could have doubled as a campaign address from a carbon copy of the president himself. They were punctuated with references to the scourge of illegal immigration, knocks on Hillary Clinton and brutal takedowns of Democrats.
Given that he has been considering a run for the Senate from New Hampshire for several weeks, Lewandowski and his allies saw the hearing as an opportunity to promote his allegiance to Trump in a way that could benefit him politically. Lewandowski made no secret that he was using the proceedings to further his own political ambitions. During a break that he requested, he tweeted out a link to a website for a new super PAC that was created today, “Stand With Corey.”
Democrats were just as cantankerous as they pushed for answers from an often uncooperative Lewandowski. Their questioning of Lewandowski was never going to be amicable. But it took no more than a minute of questioning for the hearing to begin to break down entirely.
Almost immediately, Lewandowski made clear he intended to do whatever he could to slow down the proceedings, including demanding that Democrats read him the section of the Mueller report about which they were questioning him.
When Rep. Jerrold Nadler, DN.Y., the committee’s chairman, asked Lewandowski if it was correct — as stated in the Mueller report — 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 a copy of the more than 400-page document.
An exasperated Nadler had staff give Lewandowski a printed copy of the report.
“Mr. Chairman, where on page 90 is it?” Lewandowski said.
“Do you not have an independent recollection?” Nadler shot back.
Later, things got testier still as Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., tried repeatedly to get Lewandowski to read aloud the message Trump dictated to him in the Oval Office, and Lewandowski refused.
“Are you ashamed of the words you wrote down?” Swalwell asked.
Lewandowski sneeringly told him to read the passage himself.
As Trump traveled from New Mexico to California on Tuesday afternoon, he had the televisions aboard Air Force One tuned into the hearing, according to people familiar with what was taking place.
The president and the staff traveling with him loved Lewandowski’s combativeness, those people said.
Within moments of Lewandowski’s first refusal to answer Nadler’s questions about his conversations with the president, Trump tweeted his appreciation for “such a beautiful opening statement.”