Justification for not answering questions from Democratic Committee members. It earned him a warning about being held in contempt, it drew a string of frustrated responses from democrats and attacks by republicans on the proceedings themselves. The president tweeted praise for him. He tweeted back, thanks. In short, Corey Lewandowski was the central figure today in a messy, very messy Political Drama or circus or witch hunt, depending on how you see it. Theres a small sample, including a key moment including Democratic Committee member hank johnson, during which he conf m confirmed the president to order Jeff Sessions to curtail the investigation. The white house has directed i not disclose the substance of any discussions with the president or his advisers to protect executive branch confidentiali confidentiality. I recognize this is not my privilege, but i am respecting the white houses decision. As for actual collusion or conspiracy, there was none. What there has been, however, is harassment of this president from the day he won the election. Thats what he wanted you to deliver to attorney general Jeff Sessions, correct . I believe thats an accurate representation. And he wanted you to deliver it to jeff so that jeff could say it to the people, right . I believe so. And you felt kind of squeamish, like that fish that you are trying to be right now, being scaled, you felt a little squeamish about delivering that message, correct . No, sir. Well, why didnt you why did it take you so long and you never even delivered it . Correct, i never delivered the message. Yeah, you chickened out. I went on vacation. You went on vacation. And so you put the message in the safe, in your safe, in your home, for safekeeping, correct . Before you went on vacation . I took my kids to the beach, congressman. That was more of a priority. And President Trump was hounding you about, when are you going to deliver that message, correct . Completely inaccurate, congressman. Well, he asked you about it a few times, didnt he . No, he did not. He never asked you whether or not you had delivered that message . Not on multiple occasions, no. One occasion, okay . He did mention it on one occasion to you . I dont know if thats in the report, sir, or not. So the president asked you twice in the oval office to deliver a secret message to the attorney general of the United States, a message that you quickly wrote down, word for word, at the president s direction, correct . Sir . I believe i wrote it down. And when you worked for the president during his campaign, did you ever ignore or disobey directions from candidate trump . I didnt believe it to be in order. You didnt think that was illegal to obstruct justice . Congressman, the president has asked me to do nothing illegal. Did you lie sir in Television Interviews that you had asked to give interviews to the special counsel. I dont believe so. So you deny that you didnt lie in public statements about what im saying is, when under oath, i have always told the truth. I have no honest to be honest to the media, because they are just as dishonest as anybody else. So youre admitting, sir, that you were not being truthful in that clip. My interview with ari melber can be interpreted in any way we like. So do you have a thought why we continue to engage in a charade that is overwhelmingly opposed by the American People and fundamentally misunderstood by any democratic colleagues . You know, congressman, i think they hate this president more than they love their country. Plenty to talk about. In a moment, congresswoman Shelia Jackson lee. But first, former republican president ial candidate and Rick Santorum is with us. Also, cnn political analyst kristen powers, and cnn chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. Jeff, what actually came out of this hearing today. Anything . Well, not much that wasnt in the Mueller Report. I mean, that was very much by lewandowskis design. I mean, his invented legal theory was that he could only talk about what was in the Mueller Report, but as that hank johnson exchange showed, the congressman from georgia, the hearing hearing lewandowski talk about thousahow the presid instructed him, word for word, writing down the instruction to go tell Jeff Sessions to ease off the mueller investigation, it was dramatic business. But it was not anything substantially new. And kirsten, if the idea of this was to sort of open the eyes of the American Public about whats actually in the Mueller Report, i understand maybe some people took that who were watching it so closely, got that from those exchanges that we just cut together. But if you just tuned into this thing, it was a bunch of people yelling back and forth and being passiveaggressive to each other and i mean, it didnt yeah. It wasnt something that was, you know, informing the American Public every second. Yeah, it wasnt something that would inspire a lot of confidence about whats going on in washington, i dont think. And i think this was predictable in the sense that, you know, anybody who knows anything about Corey Lewandowski, this is exactly the person that you would have expected to show up. You would expect him to be very pugilistic and behave in exactly the manner that he behaved. So i think that, you know, and im not excusing his behavior. I mean, i particularly found his claim that you only need to tell the truth when youre under oath interesting. And that its okay to lie to the media. Thats kind of problematic. And look, i think that he played an important role, certainly, you know, this sounds like obstruction when you have the president dictating to you to go and basically, you know, pass on this message to Jeff Sessions that he didnt pass on. You know, to stop the investigation. So its not unimportant, its just, i dont think this was a very constructive hearing. Senator santorum, i want to get your views on the hearing overall. And just on this executive privilege that is being i mean, if you had a somebody testifying before you, who was claiming an executive privilege, does Corey Lewandowski really have the right i mean, he doesnt work for the white house. Does he really get to just not answer questions . Yeah, first, im not an expert on executive privilege. I wish i had the opportunity to be able to exercise executive privilege, but i never got that opportunity, so im really not an expert. But it doesnt seem to me jeffrey would probably answer it more definitively. It doesnt seem to me like he would be covered by executive privilege, but that doesnt mean that the president cant assert it and have it litigated. And in the meantime, Corey Lewandowski doesnt answer questions before the congress. And so, in sum, i think it was a very bad day for the House Democrats. It just looked desperate. It looked pathetic, frankly. I thought it was a very good day for Corey Lewandowski, for what he wanted to accomplish there, which is, he hasnt announced hes running for the senate, but if i was running for the senate, i would want the opportunity to do what he just did today and to be able to raise a lot of smalldollar donations. He set up a website, which is staying with corey, and i know theyre raising money for that, so i think it was a very good day for corey. Can i address the legal aspect for a second . This is an outrageous claim. The idea that a nongovernment official, someone who never worked for the administration, never worked for the government is covered by executive privilege in his conversations with the president , no court has ever held that. But it was even worse than that. Its that according to the white houses theory, which came out in a letter yesterday from the white House Counsel, lewandowskis conversations with other government officials in the white house is also covered by executive privilege. He refused to answer questions about that. What he was planning on, and maybe this was good politics, is that the democrats didnt have the energy or the time to find him in contempt, get the house vote, go to the district court, go to the circuit court, spend months to litigate this, but that shouldnt obscure the fact that the legal claim that the white house made was just outrageous and wrong. But finding corey in contempt for coreys basically going along with what hes been instructed by the president of the United States that hes dish mean, corey i mean, i dont think corey is the person that you go after here. I mean, the reality is that its the president asserting this claim. But the president doesnt have any magical power over Corey Lewandowski, or he appears to, because Corey Lewandowski, you know, is not an employee but he complied and he complied with it. I mean but the you dont have to comply to a letter from the president of the United States. This is not yet a dictatorship. Also, does anybody really believe i mean, does anybody really believe that he didnt deliver the letter, because he went to the beach with his children . You know, that just doesnt pass the smell test. I think that corey knew that there was something wrong with this. And so, i think that he wasnt being particularly forthcoming. Anybody looking at this can see that theres something wrong with this, which is why you might try to pass it off on someone else who didnt want to do it because they recognized there was something wrong with it. Senator, isnt it kind of a weird way to run for senate by admitting that youre happy to lie to the American People . I know he was phrasing it as lying to the media, lying to reporters, but, you know, its not as if the end result is youre lying to the American People. You are giving people false information. And youre fine with that . You have no moral problem with that . Yeah, i think that was a little flippant on his part. I certainly wouldnt have made that comment. I dont think, particularly, if youre running for office, its not a good thing for him to say. I think he was taking the trump approach, which is, its different to you notice he pointed out the reporters name, he didnt talk about lying to the public, he basically said, you know, i didnt tell the truth to this guy who doesnt have a right to hear the truth from me, basically. And i dont think thats a good line for him, and i would hope that he would, you know, go out and say, im going to tell the truth to the people of New Hampshire all the time. But that doesnt seem to be jeff, am i wrong, that doesnt seem to be his philosophy . He thinks i mean, he thinks everybodys a sucker, that they can be lied to, it seems like. But i think he has a lot of company in that view, in the Republican Party, and in the white house. I mean, he was playing for an audience of one, i thought. You know, he was displaying enormous contempt, not in the legal sense, but just in the personal sense for the members of congress. You know, baiting them, taunting them. You know, calling Eric Swalwell president swalwell because swalwell had an Unsuccessful Campaign for president. He was performing for donald trump and i think donald trump appreciated that. And i dont think donald trump it bothered him that lewandowski admitted to lying, because he lied to msnbc. And thats like the belly of the beast for these people. Right. So, i just i think, you know, the moral quality of the audience is appropriate. His audience was not donald trump. His audience were Trump Supporters in New Hampshire. I would just far enough. Beg to differ with you there. Although, he still wants to please daddy. Theres no doubt hes still i dont think he has any problem with that. I think hes trying to secure the trump voters in New Hampshire, to get that primary win. Yeah, Rick Santorum, thank you. Kristen powers, jeff toobin, appreciate it. Thanks. Coming up next, if as weve been discussing the goal was public persuasion, what do democrats actually think they accomplished today . How are they going to say that they accomplished something . Well hear from one Committee Member whod her own confrontation with Corey Lewandowski. And later, well speak with someone who unlike lewandowski who has broken with the president , Anthony Scaramucci and what is it people like li lewandowski so loyal to the president when time and time the president has destroyed people who leave his inner circle. Well be right back. 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He called his white House Counsel to fire the special counsel. Mcgahn said no. He called the attorney general to ask him to unrecuse himself from the special counsels investigation. Sessions said no. His white House Counsel said there should be no contact with sessions, because of his recusal. So what does the president do . He calls you in to do what everyone else wouldnt do. He called you in to do his dirty work in secret, because he knew it was wrong well, we will expose the truth and the president cannot hide behind you any longer. Skpus and you should be here to tell the truth because the truth will set you free and the American People. The time of the gentle lalad has expired. The witness may answer the question. I dont believe there was a question, congressman. Yes, there was. Can you repeat the question. It was just a rant. Whatever you heard it, that was neither the first such utterance nor the first snippy remark from the witness. I spoke about it with the congresswoman just before air time. Congresswoman jackson lee, what, if anything, do you think todays hearing actually accomplished . Well, in fact, it was enormously valuable. Our Mission Today was to follow the obstruction of justice that was promulgated, promoted, enhanced, and encouraged by this administration. I think youre well aware, anderson, that article iii in the nixon and clearly, today, Corey Lewandowskied by a letter from white house, clearly attempted to obstruct congress and follow the obstruction that was again perpetrated in the white house, along the lines of dealing with the attorney general, mr. Mcgahn, mr. Dearborn, and mr. Porter. That is clearly a part of our duty as we are in the midst