Corey Lewandowski Rumored To Join White House Amid Donald Trump ‘Denial’ Over Ukraine Whistleblower
Corey Lewandowski is reportedly in talks with the White House to lead the president’s effort against impeachment proceedings amid reports that President Trump is ‘in denial’ over the severity of the allegations leveled against him by a whistleblower.
The report comes from CNN on Thursday and says that Lewandowski, who served as campaign manger of the President’s 2016 bid for the White House from January 2015 to June 2016, has had conversations with White House officials about joining the administration to head a team that will combat efforts to impeach the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, announced Tuesday that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry following allegations a whistleblower made against the president.
Per the CNN report, the White House is also eyeing other individuals to join the administration to help it fight attacks from Democrats during the impeachment inquiry, though CNN said White House aides denied those claims. Instead, they said current members of the president’s team were well-equipped to handle the House impeachment inquiry.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, a whistleblower in August filed an official complaint following his or her “urgent concern” after a July phone call the president had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he asked the foreign leader for a “favor.”
The whistleblower, who was not on the call, claims he was told about it by some of the dozen individuals who were listening in.
The White House preemptively released a summary transcript of the call with Ukraine on Wednesday, which supports several of the whistleblower’s complaints, including that the president asked the country for the favor, which involved investigations into both the 2016 election and one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is currently in the running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and Trump asked Ukraine to investigate claims relating to him and his son, Hunter Biden.
The whistleblower report, however, alleges that following the July 25 call, which occurred amid reports that the president ordered his administration to hold some $400 million in aid to the Ukraine, the president and administration officials attempted to “lock down” the existence of the conversation. The whistleblower said that included the locking down of the entire transcript of the discussion between the two leaders through the use of a storage system meant for classified information.
Mike Turner, Ohio Republican, Tells Donald Trump Released Ukraine Transcript 'Is Not OK'. 'I think it's disappointing to the American public when they read the transcript,' Turner said. #DonaldTrump #USPolitics https://t.co/sYfVnsptjl
— The Inquisitr (@theinquisitr) September 26, 2019
The whistleblower also claimed that both Attorney General William Barr and the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were also involved in calls for Ukraine to investigate Biden. Both individuals were mentioned in the summary transcript.
The president is reportedly in denial over the “gravity” of the whistleblower allegations leveled against him, though publicly he has held strong in refuting claims that he committed any wrongdoing. The president tweeted Thursday afternoon and said there was no case for impeachment. It was the third time the president had taken to his Twitter on Thursday to make such claims.
“Is there a case for impeachment? Absolutely not! There is no high crime or misdemeanor, no crime, no extortion, no treason.” Robert Ray @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2019
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also renewed her condemnation of the president in a statement before reporters on Thursday. Pelosi claimed that Trump had engaged in a “cover-up” following the call. As The Inquisitr noted, her comment was made while Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified before Congress about the whistleblower report and claims that he held the official report from Congress for more than a month.
