President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski appeared on Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview with the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Lewandowski is the latest senior official in Trump’s orbit who has met with the committee as part of its investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Lewandowski was interviewed by the committee’s staff.
The committee has already interviewed Paul Manafort, who succeeded Lewandowski as head of the Trump campaign.
Lewandowski said earlier this year that he did not have any contact with Russian officials and if there was contact made by Manafort or others on the campaign, Trump did not know about it.
Lewandowski was still on the Trump campaign when the June 2016 meeting occurred between a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Manafort. Lewandowski was not at the meeting.
At the time, Lewandowski and Manafort were fighting for power on the Trump campaign, and Lewandowski resigned weeks later.
In April 2016, Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos emailed Lewandowski about arranging a Russia meeting, The Washington Post reported.
“Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” he wrote. It was one of several emails Papadopoulos sent to Trump campaign officials, and such a meeting never took place.
Lewandowski, a former CNN political commentator, founded a political consulting firm after the election. In August, he joined a pro-Trump super PAC.
Senate intelligence chairman Richard Burr and top Democrat on the committee, Mark Warner, have said the committee is talking to more than two dozen witnesses this month as the investigation is turning to questions of possible collusion.
The Senate judiciary committee has also requested documents from Lewandowski as part of that panel’s probe into Russia’s election meddling.
A spokesman for Burr declined comment. Lewandowski has not commented either.
