Washington, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced the Committee has served subpoenas on Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn for public testimony on September 17, 2019. These witnesses were involved in President Trump’s extensive efforts to obstruct the Special Counsel’s investigation.
Chairman Nadler released the following statement:
“It is clear that any other American would have been prosecuted based on the evidence Special Counsel Mueller uncovered in his report. Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn were prominently featured in the Special Counsel’s description of President Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice by directing then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire the Special Counsel, and then by ordering him to lie about it.
“The Committee intends to hold hearings and obtain testimony over the coming months as part of its efforts to hold the President accountable as we move forward with our investigation into obstruction, corruption and abuse of power by Trump and his associates. This will help the Committee determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the President or other Article 1 remedies. No one is above the law.”
Background:
Corey Lewandowski served as Donald Trump’s campaign manager from January 2015 to June 2016. (Mueller Report, Appendix B, B-6). He remained in close contact with the President thereafter.
- Trump asked Lewandowski to have Jeff Sessions limit the Mueller investigation. As the Report states, “[o]n June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was ‘very unfair’ to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and ‘let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections.’ Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.” (Report, p. 5, Vol. II)
- Trump asked Lewandowski a second time to have Sessions limit Mueller. According to the Report, “in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon.” (Report, p. 5, Vol. II)The Report says that “Lewandowski recalled that the President told him that if Sessions did not meet with him, Lewandowski should tell Sessions he was fired.” (Report, p. 93, Vol. II)
Rick Dearborn served as White House Deputy chief of staff for policy. Dearborn previously served as chief of staff to then-Senator Jeff Sessions before joining the Trump administration. (Report, Appendix B, B-3; Report, p. 105, Vol. I)
- Corey Lewandowski asked Dearborn to deliver the message to Sessions limiting Mueller’s investigation. As the Report states, “[i]mmediately following the meeting with the President, Lewandowski saw Dearborn in the anteroom outside the Oval Office and gave him a typewritten version of the message the President had dictated to be delivered to Sessions. Lewandowski told Dearborn that the notes were the message they had discussed, but Dearborn did not recall whether Lewandowski said the message was from the President. The message “definitely raised an eyebrow” for Dearborn, and he recalled not wanting to ask where it came from or think further about doing anything with it. Dearborn also said that being asked to serve as a messenger to Sessions made him uncomfortable. He recalled later telling Lewandowski that he had handled the situation, but he did not actually follow through with delivering the message to Sessions, and he did not keep a copy of the typewritten notes Lewandowski had given him.” (Report, p. 93, Vol. II)
Text of the Corey Lewandowski subpoena is available here.
Text of the Rick Dearborn subpoena is available here.
