Donald Trump branded Lewandowski’s opening statement “beautiful."
When Corey Lewandoski joined Donald Trump’s campaign in 2014, there were only three other people attached to the project. Two of those three have been indicted—Roger Stone on witness tampering and making false statements and Michael Cohen on lying to Congress. Cohen is now in a federal prison beside Billy McFarland of failed Fyre Fest fame while Stone is awaiting trial. The final member of that group was political operator Sam Nunberg, who has stayed mostly quiet and declined to comment on-the-record to Playboy when I called him.
On Tuesday, Lewandowski sat before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing that promised to get ugly and interesting. On the night before Lewandowski appeared before the committee, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter to Chairman Jerry Nadler saying that Lewandowksi had been directed “not to discuss the substance of any conversations he had with the President” that were not included in Robert Mueller’s report. Lewandowski never actually worked in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and in his opening statement, Nadler accused the White House of “an absolute cover-up.”
The White House has been stonewalling the Judiciary Committee, and former Trump aides Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter defied subpoenas and did not appear on Tuesday; which meant that Lewandowski sat alone at the witness table. But the witness was never there to shed any light on the potential crimes of the president.
In the first moments of the hearing, Lewandowski and the Republicans guaranteed that it descended into chaos. He was asked to cite from the Mueller Report, but said he didn’t have a copy. He refused to answer questions and talked over Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee so much that the tiny but domineering Texas congresswoman quipped “this is the House Judiciary, not a house party.”
If you were watching the hearing and hoping for anything newsworthy, you were disappointed. Instead, you saw Corey Lewandowski reinventing himself on live television as the Trump sycophant who is running for a Senate seat or maybe a position on the president’s re-election campaign. Lewandowski’s career was starved of oxygen. His contracts as a political commentator on CNN and Fox have died away, his lobbying career is spotty, and he’s known mostly in Washington as a serial liar who you can usually find drinking at the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House.
Lewandowski’s career was starved of oxygen. His contracts as a political commentator on CNN and Fox have died away, his lobbying career is spotty, and he’s known mostly in Washington as a serial liar.
At the beginning of the circus, Donald Trump logged on to Twitter and branded Lewandowski’s opening statement “beautiful.” Just over an hour later, Corey Lewandowski asked for a short break and tweeted out a link to a website that he said he “launched to help a potential Senate run”—it was no longer a hearing about Russian interference.
The only moment in which Lewandowski really looked foolish came as the Democrats’ lawyer questioned him and broke him into pieces. In that back-and-forth, Lewandowski confessed to lying in an MSNBC interview and stumbled on questions about his conversations with the president. But, as a frustrated Democratic aide noted to me after the hearing, by that point the network anchors had bored of Corey Lewandowski and were talking mostly about a new poll ranking the Democratic presidential candidates.
Lewandowski may actually win his Senate seat if Donald Trump is able to carry him at the top of the ballot. He’s running against Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who the wizards say is a safe incumbent but the president has a habit of poisoning the crystal ball.
Sitting Republican Senators didn’t want to acknowledge the show that Lewandowski was making on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham both told Playboy that they didn’t watch Corey Lewandowski’s testimony. Sen. Marco Rubio also said that he didn’t see the show and when I asked what he thinks about Lewandowski’s chances in the Senate, the Florida Republican deadpanned “He’s running for Senate? Where?”
But Lewandowski has the sort of burning idiocy that’s almost guaranteed to keep him out of the upper chamber. He’s been accused of sexual assault and arrested for physically abusing a reporter at a Trump rally. The general belief is that there is no shortage of ugly and credible allegations against him that are still unreported conversations in Washington. Everybody in this town has a story about spotting Corey Lewandowski at some bar.
The Senate Republicans’ apparent hesitation to embrace Lewandowski is unsurprising—the former Trump aide will make a terrible politician. He will anger party bosses and fail to claim any legislative victories. The Senate GOP is not as adoring of Trump as the House, and Lewandowski would be cut off from any conversations that might yield progress. Senators don’t always like the president messing with their chamber, and they know that talking to Lewandowski is equivalent to telling Trump their next move.
Tuesday’s testimony did not give us any new insight into how Lewandowski may behave as a Senator—we already knew that he would be a baboonish lawmaker. It only allowed us the opportunity to get another glance at him, and it will be a critical moment in the timeline when we describe his career trajectory. We will remember it as another instance in which he auditioned for Trump’s endorsement.