Lewandowski: ‘Somebody Knew’ About Porter Domestic Violence Allegations

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski arrives at Trump Tower, November 22, 2016 in New York City. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are in the process of filli... NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski arrives at Trump Tower, November 22, 2016 in New York City. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Monday that he believed someone in the Trump White House knew about the domestic violence allegations against former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter.

Porter resigned in February after his ex-wives’ allegations against him were made public. But the FBI had sent the White House the results of Wray’s background check months earlier, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to a CNN report that cited unnamed sources, Porter was even in talks to get a promotion when the allegations went public.

“We saw a problem in the White House a few months back where an individual who shouldn’t have been there continued to have access to information,” Lewandowski told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Monday. “And that was a failure somewhere.”

He added, when Cuomo pressed: “I think somebody knew.”

“Somebody knew, and the question was, what did they know and how soon did they know it?” Lewandowski said.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who has faced harsh criticism for Porter’s continued employment at the White House despite the FBI reports on the allegations against him, said Friday that “I have nothing to even consider resigning over.”

Lewandowski has faced allegations of criminal wrongdoing himself: He was charged with battery during the presidential campaign after surveillance video showed him grabbing and yanking the arm of then-Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields. (Trump defended Lewandowski fiercely and the charges were dropped a few weeks later.)

And in December of last year Joy Villa, a singer and Trump supporter, filed a report with the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police alleging Lewandowski slapped her butt at a party at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. previous month. Villa told CNN that Lewandowski “smacked my ass really hard, almost violent in nature.” When Villa told Lewandowski she could report the him for sexual harassment, she told CNN, Lewanowski said “I work in the private sector” and slapped her again.

Lewandowski said of the Villa’s claim at the time: “What I am going to do is to let the process play forward just as you did when you were accused of sexual harassment in your own case.”

Pressed again by Cuomo Monday, Lewandowski said of the media’s questions about Porter: “There is some clear legitimacy to those questions.” Cuomo did not ask Lewandowski about Villa’s allegation.

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Notable Replies

  1. “I think somebody knew.”

    Yeah, Porter did.

    The End.

  2. That some Pulitzer Prize winning writing there!

    Well written, concise, and accurate…

  3. Ass kissing, ass slapping, ass kicking. That’s the Trump WH, for sure!

  4. We know that people in the WH knew. The issue here is which person in the WH Lewandowski is out for revenge against. He’s like Trump: no slight should go unpunished.

  5. “Somebody knew” in the White House that Porter was a serial wife beater? It should be plural: “everyone knew”, but no one cared.

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