Survival of the sleaziest

Of all the bootlickers that Donald Trump has surrounded himself with, Corey Lewandowski, who testified Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, takes the cake.

Lewandowski, the one-time campaign manager for Donald Trump, was evasive, combative, and defiant, exceeding in abjection and obnoxiousness Trump’s leading lying spinsters like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kelly Ann Conway. Those two survived when most other Trump aides perished, winners in the Trump’s version of Darwinism, survival of the sleaziest. Lewandowski knew what model he had to follow. And Lewandowski followed the instructions of Donald Trump to stay mum even though he doesn’t work for the administration.

Playing hand in hand with the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, Lewandowsky repeatedly threw a wrench into the proceedings by interrupting with objections and using every delaying tactic in the book, and some out of it. For most of the long hearing, Lewandowski ran circles around the Democrats. It was ugly. The Democrats were working under House rules, Lewandowski and the GOP used a different playbook.

Watching the congressional testimony of Corey Lewandowski, who replaced the jail-bound Paul Manafort as Trump’s campaign chairman, it became clear that the people in the president’s loyal inner circle abide by omertà, the mafia code that mandates silence about criminal activity and the refusal to give evidence to authorities. Protecting the capo, the mob boss, is the top priority. No wonder the Republicans see no evil and hear no evil while the Democrats often looked hapless during Tuesday’s hearing.

However, things began to change toward the end when an outside counsel hired by the Democrats began to question Lewandowski. Lewandowski finally had to admit that the president asked him to deliver a message to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Thanks to the Mueller report and not to Lewandowski’s Tuesday testimony — we know the message was for Sessions to shut down the Mueller investigation.

That is an obvious attempt to obstruct justice, But the act was never consummated. Lewandowski tasked an associate with delivering the message. It was never delivered.

Lewandowski’s explanation for why he followed a circuitous route to send the message and why Lewandowski’s associate didn’t deliver the message is a lie. He said communicating the message was not a high priority. Anyone would consider delivering a message from the president to a top official of the highest priority. This would apply twice over to a Trump brownnoser like Lewandowsky and with this president, the biggest bully in the White House ever.

Lewandowski insisted the president never asked him to do anything illegal, but his failure to convey the message as well as his associate’s failure to do so betrays an awareness that they would be incriminating themselves if they did. Thus, when Lewandowski insisted in his testimony that the president never asked him to do anything illegal, he was lying through his teeth. Everyone knew squelching the investigation was a crime, including the president, who sent it through a third party rather than personally or via a public official in order to hide his hand.

President Trump is the most prolific liar in a field renowned for lies—politics. But whereas Trump can lie to the FBI, the media and the public with impunity—the president is immune from indictment–for people like Lewandowski and other Trump minions lying under oath to Congress, the FBI, or a special prosecutor is likely to result in a stint behind bars.

Thus, Lewandowski’s pathetic tightrope act before the House Judiciary Committee, in which he tried to avoid outright lying while observing omertà, never uttering the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Instead, he refused to answer, dissembled, conveniently claimed memory lapses, and asserted an executive privilege to which as a private citizen he is not entitled. But walking a tightrope is hard, and Lewandowski showed himself more combative and obnoxious than cool and skillful. He appears to have fallen off the rope a couple of times and perjure himself in the process. No matter. Attorney-General William Barr is another Trump toady and will not prosecute. The corruption in this administration is pervasive and profound.

Nevertheless, Lewandowski had a hard time keeping straight what he said to special prosecutor Robert Mueller versus what he testified to Congress versus what he told the media. He ran into the classic liars’ dilemma, keeping the lies consistent. But he managed for most of the hearing, with the help of the Republican members of the committee, to obfuscate, posture, wax indignant and generally frustrate the Democratic members until an outside lawyer hired by the Democrats took over the questioning. Lewandowski finally was forced to admit the president dictated to Lewandowski a speech Trump wanted Sessions to deliver in which he was to thrash Mueller and announce the end of the investigation of the 2016 campaign.

Several things became clearer than ever with the Lewandowski testimony. The effort to obstruct justice to protect the president is not a sole Trump initiative but is a group project of the president, the GOP in Congress, and Trump’s leading sycophants. The motive behind the ferocious defense of Trump by Lewandowski and the ranking Republican in the Judiciary Committee Congressman, Doug Collins, was less a matter of opportunism than conviction. Both will be running for office in 2020 and need Trump’s support badly. These two are the worst kind of politicians, the kind who will do anything to win. Lewandowsky, who came across as thuggish, and Collins, who exudes sleaze, represent the two sides of the Trump persona, the abuser and the con man.