(This is a screen-shot from c-span.org of Berke questioning Lewandowski.)If you watched the beginning of Lewandowski's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, you were probably disappointed. It certainly looked like chaos in action, with Democrats failing to get the testimony they needed. I hope you stuck around for the end. Things changed dramatically when Democratic counsel Barry Berke took over the questioning.
Here is how Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin describes it:
Corey Lewandowski sneered and dodged and raised phony privileges when questioned by members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. He did, however, make a fatal error (fatal to President Trump, that is) when he repeatedly said the White House had instructed him not to answer questions. After the hearing, Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told CNN: “Article 3 of Nixon’s impeachment was obstruction of Congress, refusing to obey defined congressional subpoenas, pleading imaginary privileges. And obviously that’s what the president has been doing.” In short, Lewandowski’s own conduct provided evidence of obstruction. The real excitement came, however, after the media decided it was all chaos and Democrats had accomplished nothing. Democrats’ counsel Barry Berke got 30 minutes to question Lewandowski and made the most of it. Here’s what he accomplished: 1. Berke forced Lewandowski to acknowledge that when he said on national television multiple times he would “voluntarily” appear before special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, that was false. Berke demonstrated Lewandowski also lied when he said on TV he had not been asked to testify. Lewandowski asserted he had no obligation to tell the media (and the public) the truth. 2. Berke made plain that Lewandowski took the Fifth and refused to testify for the special counsel unless granted immunity. He also showed Lewandowski clips of him publicly stating that when you take the Fifth, you’ve done something wrong. 3. Berke established that before asking Lewandowski to take a message to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the White House just so happened to dangle a White House job before him. 4. Berke established that Lewandowski was absolutely loyal to Trump yet never delivered the message. 5. Berke also established that Lewandowski wanted to have a private meeting with Sessions so there would be no record. In short, Berke made perfectly clear that Lewandowski’s actions (refusing to deliver Trump’s instructions, demanding immunity, lying on TV, creating no record) demonstrated he knew he was being asked to do something wrong or illegal. Now, that doesn’t show Trump thought he was doing something illegal, but Berke did underscore a finding of the Mueller report (which few read) that Trump instructed Lewandowski to talk to Sessions to curtail the Russia investigation. This is one of the clearest instances of obstruction, one that Mueller found met all the elements of the crime of obstruction. And along the way, Berke demonstrated that Lewandowski, who declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, is a habitual liar who thinks nothing of lying publicly as long as he is not under oath. . . . Hey, not bad for one afternoon. I look forward to Berke’s next inquisition.
