Lewandowski Says Manafort Joined Trump Campaign in ‘Very Limited Capacity,’ Immediately Contradicts Himself

Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning to put his best spin on the bombshell news that his sucessor at the campaign, Paul Manafort, was indicted Tuesday.

When asked by the Fox & Friends hosts about the Trump campaign’s vetting processes, Lewandowski reiterated a point he made on Monday: that the FBI should have warned the campaign that Manafort was under surveillance.

“He came on to the campaign in a very limited capacity, to help us find delegates,” Lewandowski then said of Manafort, who was hired by the Trump campaign as chairman.

But when Fox News’s Steve Doocy asked if federal authorities are supposed to alert presidential campaigns that their staffers are under investigation, Lewandowski changed his tune on Manafort’s prominence in the campaign.

He replied that Manafort “joined the campaign in a high-profile capacity,” and that “you would think, just from a security standpoint, [the FBI] would brief the campaign and say ‘look, we’ve got some concerns about this person.'”

Officials in Trump’s now-administration have worked tirelessly to distance themselves from Manafort, who surrendered to federal authorities on Monday after he was indicted on 12 counts, from money laundering to conspiracy to tax crimes. And that’s not a new trend: remember when former Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the campaign chairman “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time” on the campaign? Us neither.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

—

Follow Aidan McLaughlin (@aidnmclaughlin) on Twitter

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com