September 18, 2019

Corey Lewandowski Comes Home to CNN

And surprise, the former Trump campaign manager lied again.

In the final stretch of a five-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Corey Lewandowski claimed defiantly, “I have no obligation to be honest with the media, because they’re just as dishonest as anybody else.”

The moment, which epitomized both the president’s whataboutery and disdain for the truth, came as Barry Berke, a lawyer for House Democrats, confronted Lewandowski with various lies he had deployed during previous media appearances to discuss the Russia investigation.

For many, the exchange was a perfect snapshot of Lewandowski’s public persona, from his time as Donald Trump’s hostile campaign manager to a sycophantic mouthpiece for the president. (He spent most of the hearing stonewalling Democrats and ingratiating himself to the president.) But for CNN, the performance registered as yet another a shiny opportunity to bring back their former paid contributor.

As anyone could have predicted, no useful information emerged from Lewandowski’s eventual appearance on CNN’s morning show. Instead, he shouted over lines of questioning and—surprise—lied about the Mueller report:

The decision to feature Lewandowski was widely blasted. But such criticism overlooks the fact that CNN had hired the fiercely loyal Trump ally, a man who repeatedly bullied members of the media, just three days after he had been axed from the campaign. Two months into joining the network, it was revealed that Lewandowski was still getting paid by the campaign.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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