What Lewandowski didn't want you to know

[Pete F.]

This is Lewandowski's involvement in the Mueller Report. Nothing anyone else would not have done in that circumstance, I'm sure.

F. The President's Efforts to Curtail the Special Counsel Investigation
Overview

Two days after the President directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on one with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to future election interference only. One month later, the President met again with Lewandowski and followed up on the request to have Sessions limit the scope of the Russia investigation. Lewandowski told the President the message would be delivered soon. Hours later,
the President publicly criticized Sessions in an unplanned press interview, raising questions about Sessions's job security.

1. The President Asks Corey Lewandowski to Deliver a Message to Sessions to Curtail the Special Counsel Investigation

On June 19, 2017, two days after the President directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski . Senior White House advisors described Lewandowski as a devotee of the President and said the relationship between the President and Lewandowski was close.

During the June 19 meeting, Lewandowski recalled that, after some small talk, the President brought up Sessions and criticized his recusal from the Russia investigation. The President told Lewandowski that Sessions was weak and that if the President had known about the
likelihood of recusal in advance, he would not have appointed Sessions. The President then asked Lewandowski to deliver a message to Sessions and said "write this down." This was the first time the President had asked Lewandowski to take dictation, and Lewandowski wrote as fast as possible to make sure he captured the content correctly.

The President directed that Sessions should give a speech publicly announcing:I know that recused myself from certain things having to do with specific areas. But our POTUS . . . is being treated very unfairly. He shouldn't have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel b/c he hasn't done anything wrong. I was on the campaign w/ him for nine months, there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact b/c I was there. He didn't do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history.
The dictated message went on to state that Sessions would meet with the Special Counsel to limit his jurisdiction to future election interference: Now a group of people want to subvert the Constitution of the United States. I am going to meet with the Special Prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the Special Prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections.

The President said that if Sessions delivered that statement he would be the most popular guy in the country. Lewandowski told the President he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.
Lewandowski wanted to pass the message to Sessions in person rather than over the phone. He did not want to meet at the Department of Justice because he did not want a public log of his visit and did not want Sessions to have an advantage over him by meeting on what Lewandowski described as Sessions's turf. Lewandowski called Sessions and arranged a meeting for the following evening at Lewandowski's office, but Sessions had to cancel due to a last minute conflict. Shortly thereafter, Lewandowski left Washington, DC, without having had an opportunity to meet with Sessions to convey the President's message. Lewandowski stored the notes in a safe at his home, which he stated was his standard procedure with sensitive items.

2. The President Follows Up with Lewandowski

Following his June meeting with the President, Lewandowski contacted Rick Dearborn, then a senior White House official, and asked if Dearborn could pass a message to Sessions. Dearborn agreed without knowing what the message was, and Lewandowski later confrmed that
Dearborn would meet with Sessions for dinner in late July and could deliver the message then.
Lewandowski recalled thinking that the President had asked him to pass the message because the President knew Lewandowski could be trusted, but Lewandowski believed Dearborn would be a better messenger because he had a longstanding relationship with Sessions and because Dearborn was in the government while Lewandowski was not.

On July 19, 2017, the President again met with Lewandowski alone in the Oval Office.
In the preceding days, as described in Volume II, Section II.G, infra, emails and other information about the June 9, 2016 meeting between several Russians and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had been publicly disclosed. In the July 19 meeting with Lewandowski, thePresident raised his previous request and asked if Lewandowski had talked to Sessions.

Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Lewandowski recalled that the President told him that if Sessions did not meet with him, Lewandowski should tell Sessions he was fired.

Immediately 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 defnitely 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.

3. The President Publicly Criticizes Sessions in a New York Times Interview

Within hours of the President's meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President gave an unplanned interview to the New York Times in which he criticized Sessions's decision to recuse from the Russia investigation. The President said that Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else. Sessions's recusal, the President said, was very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, Thanks, Jeff, but I can't, you know, I'm not going to take you. It's extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the president.
Hicks, who was present for the interview, recalled trying to throw [herself] between the reporters and [the President] to stop parts of the interview, but the President loved the interview.
Later that day, Lewandowski met with Hicks and they discussed the President's New York Times interview. Lewandowski recalled telling Hicks about the President's request that he meet with Sessions and joking with her about the idea of firing Sessions as a private citizen if Sessions would not meet with him. As Hicks remembered the conversation, Lewandowski told her the President had recently asked him to meet with Sessions and deliver a message that he needed to do the right thing and resign. While Hicks and Lewandowski were together, the President called Hicks and told her he was happy with how coverage of his New York Times interview criticizing Sessions was playing out.