Preceding Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testified before a House committee Tuesday that he has “no obligation to be unambiguous to the media.”
But “when under oath, I’ve always told the truth,” said Lewandowski, who also made new moves in a feasible Senate bid Tuesday.
Lewandowski, hours into his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, was questioned about declarations he had made in prior television interviews. The questioner — attorney Barry Berke, who followed hours of questioning from the panel members — compared those statements with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian appointment interference
“I don’t ever remember the president ever asking me to get involved with [former Attorney General] Jeff Hearings or with the Department of Justice in any way, shape or form, ever,” Lewandowski had said in a February 2019 interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
“That was not proper, was it?” Berke asked.
“I have no obligation to be honest to the media,” Lewandowski responded. “They’re just as dishonest as anybody else.”
That counter drew an audible groan from the hearing room.
Lewandowski, 45, managed President Donald Trump’s operations from January 2015 until his firing in June 2016, and remained his close confidant after the 2016 presidential selection. He testified for roughly five hours before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday afternoon, as the Democrat-led panel weighs whether to propose that Trump be impeached.
From his opening statement onward, Lewandowski had framed himself as an unwavering supporter of Trump’s and a combative observer to the committee’s Democratic majority.
He frequently refused to answer their questions without specific citations to the text of the Mueller disclose, which he did not have in front of him. And despite his subpoena to testify, he refused to answer many of their questions, deferring to the Corpse-like House’s instruction for him not to discuss any post-election interactions with Trump beyond those already detailed in Mueller’s divulge.
Democrats rejected that argument, in no small part because Lewandowski was never a member of the Trump administration. Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., give the word delivered during the hearing that holding Lewandowski in contempt was “certainly under consideration.”
Berke, on the other hand, asked an disputatious and pointed series of questions about the specifics of Lewandowski’s role in the Mueller report, and contrasted it with Lewandowski’s other out of the closet statements and actions.
When Berke accused Lewandowski of falsely saying in another interview that he had not been provoke b requested to give answers to the special counsel, the former Trump campaign boss responded sarcastically.
“Oh, I’m sorry, nobody in winning b open of Congress has ever lied to the public before, I’m sorry,” Lewandowski said, while maintaining that he had been frank under oath.
Ranking Republican Doug Collins of Georgia called the hearing a “sham” after Nadler rubbished to allow Collins himself to follow Berke with 30 minutes of questions. Nadler said that Collins was a body member, not staff, and could therefore not have 30 minutes under the new rules that Democrats had just voted for teeny than a week earlier.
A Lewandowski spokeswoman bashed the use of an “unelected lawyer” on Twitter.
Lewandowski also took new intercedes toward a possible Senate bid in New Hampshire against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. A tweet from his official account Tuesday stimulated people to sign up to a pro-Lewandowski website that highlighted his support for, and from, Trump.
Trump sent Lewandowski an attaboy dig his opening statement, calling it “beautiful.”
Lewandowski provided the following statement through his spokesperson:
“This concludes my sixth deposition to Congress or the Special Counsel’s Office. I am pleased that today’s hearing has given the American public the chance to see that Democrats father wasted nearly three years trying to unseat a fairly elected President. I hope the House can move bold on important issues facing the country instead of continuing to indulge in partisan hysteria about impeaching President Trump.”
Lewandowski is mentioned dozens of antiquates in Mueller’s 448-page report on Russian election interference, possible coordination between Russia and the Trump contest, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump himself.
The report says that Trump, in June 2017, told Lewandowski in an Obovate Office meeting to give then-Attorney General Sessions a message directing Sessions to call Mueller’s probe “mere unfair.”
Lewandowski said he understood the request but then asked Dearborn to deliver it for him, according to the Mueller report. Dearborn not in any degree delivered the message, the report says.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee recently edged closer to formally recommending Trump’s impeachment, while maintaining that the president has barred justice while in office. Mueller’s report listed numerous instances of possible obstruction by Trump, but the special deliberation declined to recommend a charge against him. Attorney General William Barr and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declined to vanquish an obstruction charge based on the report.