Corey Lewandowski claims that President Trump called Paul Manafort a “crook” in an excerpt of his new book “Let Trump Be Trump,” published Monday in Politico.
Mr. Lewandowski claims that when Mr. Trump read the story about Mr. Manafort’s previous work in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 he said, “I’ve got a crook running my campaign.” Mr. Lewandowski was Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, then Mr. Manafort became campaign chairman, and finally Kellyanne Conway, who is now counselor to the president, led the campaign up to the election.
But despite the possible complications of Mr. Manafort’s previous work abroad, Mr. Lewandowski claims he knew once Mr. Manafort was hired, his job as Trump campaign chairman “had an expiration date.” He describes how Mr. Manafort would talk to Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner about him and how Mr. Kushner would then talk to Mr. Lewandowski about his behavior.
Mr. Manafort took over the campaign a few months after joining as an adviser overseeing the delegate count heading into the Republican National Convention.
Mr. Lewandowski details a rocky relationship between Mr. Manafort and Mr. Trump, including a tumultuous phone call involving the television appearances. Mr. Trump was furious Mr. Manafort said he should no longer be on TV at one point in the campaign, but Mr. Lewandowski claims the problem was larger than that.
“I never pretended to be smarter than the boss, because I’m not. But Manafort did, and he isn’t,” he explains in the excerpt.
The book was co-written with former Trump campaign adviser David Bossie and is set to be released on Dec. 5.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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