Trump brings back his 2016 campaign manager, known for “letting Trump be Trump”

Corey Lewandowski, the controversial campaign manager who helped propel Donald Trump to the White House in 2016, has returned to the former president’s campaign as it works to regain its footing following the surprise swap of Joe Biden for Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Lewandowski, who had been an informal adviser to Trump for the past eight years, will now advise top campaign leaders, as first reported by Politico.

The campaign is also bringing other Trump veterans into its ranks as part of the shakeup. Tim Murtaugh, who was his campaign’s communications director in 2020, will join the team. Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz, who were senior officials at an outside super PAC, will also join.

“As we head into the final stretch of this election, we continue to expand our impressive campaign team,” Trump campaign co-managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement.

“Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh are all veterans of previous Trump campaigns, and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical candidate in American history.”

Who is Corey Lewandowski?

Lewandowski, 50, was tapped to run Trump’s fledgling campaign beginning in June 2015, when Trump first announced his unlikely bid for the presidency.

The two first met in April 2014 at a political event in New Hampshire. Six months before Trump announced he would run, Lewandowski was invited to Trump Tower and offered the job of campaign manager. His salary was $20,000 a month, according to the campaign website. Wall Street Journal.

Lewandowski was known for his unofficial slogan: “Let Trump be Trump”, which was written prominently on the whiteboard in his office.

“We get along, and if you don’t get along with your campaign manager, you have a problem,” Trump said. Washington Post in 2016.

Trump fired Lewandowski in the final stretch of the 2016 campaign and replaced him with Kellyanne Conway and Paul Manafort. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., had called the split “amicable,” though it came amid allegations that he forcefully “grabbed” a protester and a journalist in separate incidents. He was charged with assault in the incident with the journalist, though the case was ultimately dismissed.

“Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge,” Trump said in a statement at the time.

Another video posted days later showed Lewandowski scuffling with protesters in Tucson, Arizona, at a Trump rally, apparently pulling one by the neck.

“I give him credit for his spirit,” Trump said at the time. “He wanted those horrible, profanity-filled signs taken down.”

Lewandowski later said he was acting in retaliation for helping Trump.

“When I see something that I think is not right, I feel I have some kind of obligation, whether it is right or wrong, to fix it,” Lewandowski said. “I thought (the protesters’ disruption) was wrong.”

Even after being ousted from Trump world before the election, Lewandowski made several appearances in the Oval Office during Trump’s presidency and was cited in the Mueller Report as a “devotee” of the president.

In 2021, there were also reports that Lewandowski made sexual advances toward the wife of a major Trump donor. Lewandowski was attending a charity dinner at a Las Vegas hotel when Trashelle Odom, John Odom’s wife, accused him of making unwanted advances during the dinner, including “repeatedly touching her, including on the leg and buttocks, and speaking to her in sexually graphic terms.”

The following year, Lewandowski was charged with misdemeanor assault in connection with the incident. He accepted a plea deal and paid a $1,000 fine, performed 50 hours of community service and completed eight hours of therapy.