May 2016

By Roger Stone

Chic Gal pal? Saudi spy? Mild mannered politician’s wife? Foreign Spy? Terrorist plant? Innocent aide? Handler?

Who is Huma Abedin besides the StoneZONE 2015 International Best Dressed Listee? Huma Abedin is vice chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign but Huma is more, much more than that. Why is it important? Because she is the person closest to the most powerful woman in American politics. Huma has been described variously as Hillary’s “body woman”, a sort of glorified ‘go to’ personal maid, gentle confidant, and Islamic spy. She may be all of these things. Learn the startling facts in the Clintons’ War on Women, the definitive expose on Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and their closest associates.

By Roger Stone

There is no doubt that Donald Trump will need help from SuperPACs this fall. Hillary Clinton and her well-funded SuperPAC allies are preparing to spend $1 Billion on the most vituperative, negative smear campaign on Republican nominee Donald Trump. The one place Trump should not look for help is from veteran Republican Operative Ed Rollins or his Great America PAC where he was hired by Jessie Benton who ran both Ron and Rand Paul’s presidential campaign into the ground before getting convicted of bribing public officials in Iowa.

Rollins was largely a figurehead on Ronald Reagan’s 1984 Presidential campaign and has been a vocal longtime critic of Trump’s. Even worse, Rollins track record is troubling – in the only successful election of his career (other than Reagan) when Christie Todd Whitman was elected Governor of New Jersey, Rollins ended up before a grand jury probing his tactics to suppress the black vote.

I worked for Rollins in the 1984 Reagan campaign and although I was not impressed with him, we had a cordial relationship and he let me do my job in the North Eastern states for Ronald Reagan.

When Rollins published his ghostwritten biography with Thomas DeFrank, Bare Knuckles and Backrooms: My Life in American Politics, he savaged me in his book. Gloves off.

Today Rollins gets his paycheck from Teneo Strategies a Clinton created influence peddling shop.Ed works for a Clinton apparatchik. How could he be trusted to help Trump?

Ed’s habit of denigrating all of his clients attacking Christie Whitman, Michael Huffington, Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachman, Katherine Harris and Bruce Bensen blaming them for his own failures is the most unprofessional act of a political consultant. It’s only a matter of time before Rollins is trashing Trump.

Those looking to help Trump should look elsewhere that the Great America PAC.

By Roger Stone

Great Performance by Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston’s performance in All The Way, the HBO adaption of the Broadway hit about President Lyndon Johnson is masterful, catching Johnson’s political acumen and strong-arm tactics and guile. Cranston told the New York Times Review of Books that my New York Times Bestseller, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ was one of the books he wanted to read in preparation for the role. I gladly sent him a book.

In “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ“, I operate on the theory that Cui Bono – he who benefits must be examined – I use fingerprint evidence , eyewitness evidence and deep Texas politics to tie a hit man employed by Johnson to the Kennedy murder. I also reveal Johnson’s role in other murders to cover-up his stunning greed and corruption. I also expose the crude, bigoted, explosive, ruthless, ambitious,sadistic, greedy,paranoid, pill-popping , drunk, womanizer and liar they called ‘Lyin’ Lyndon”

“All The Way“,  joins Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Kennedy” in missing the many compelling facts that show LBJ killed JFK. Order “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ” Now.

By Paul Harasim

Juanita Broaddrick, who accuses Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978 and Hillary Clinton of warning her to keep her mouth shut about what happened, is on the phone from her home in Van Buren, Arkansas.

It’s been 38 years since the former nursing home administrator volunteered to work in the gubernatorial campaign for Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton, 17 years since she told The Wall Street Journal and NBC’s “Dateline” what the sitting president of the United States did to her two decades prior. Through his attorney, Clinton denied the rape charge.

Broaddrick is 73 now, living alone on 40 acres of land. She says she keeps herself busy playing tennis three times a week with friends, going to church gatherings and riding a power mower to keep five acres of grass under control.

There’s also a grandson she loves to spoil, a 13-year-old she says she recently told about the Clintons she knew. The teen said someone briefly brought up “Juanita Broaddrick” in a way he didn’t understand when he took a field trip to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

“It was very difficult explaining things to him,” she said. “I didn’t go into a lot of details.”

Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic Party presidential nominee, is accusing Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, of a “penchant for sexism,” and Trump accuses Clinton of enabling her husband’s “terrible abuse of women.” I tell Broaddrick I believe what she has to say could influence the opinions of female voters. She says she understands many young voters are largely unfamiliar with the Clinton scandals.

Trump will find a way to give Broaddrick and other women who claim they’ve been victimized by the Clintons all the time they need to tell their stories on TV.

I tell Broaddrick I believe it would be the most watched TV in the history of American politics.

People would want to see if the claims are “legit,” she agreed.

Has Trump or his campaign staff contacted her?

“No,” she said.

Would she agree to go on TV and tell her story?

“Yes.”

No one, she says, should be able to get away with rape. And she says no one who wants to be president should condone it. That person would be an apologist for a predator, an individual so driven by a need for a power that any vestige of a moral compass broke long ago.

Does Broaddrick support Trump?

“The main reason I’m for Trump is that I don’t want Hillary.”

Broaddrick says she hasn’t read a recent New York Times piece describing Trump’s boorish behavior with women, which also recounts how his ex-wife Ivana says he raped her during their marriage. Ivana Trump now says he didn’t.

On Jan. 6 at 11:42 a.m., Broaddrick tweeted her way back into the public’s consciousness: “I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73…it never goes away.”

Seeing the Clintons on the campaign trail again — she said every TV station seemed to have them on — was like torture. She was moved to comment. Since that tweet, she has been contacted by media to tell her story.

That story begins in Little Rock, with Clinton convincing Broaddrick to talk about the 1978 gubernatorial campaign over coffee in her hotel room. Within minutes, Broaddrick says, Bill Clinton pulled her onto the bed and forcibly had sex with her. She says Clinton subsequently called her several times wanting to get together. “It was disgusting,” she said.

About three weeks later, Broaddrick says she was approached by Hillary Clinton at a meeting. Broaddrick says Hillary thanked her for “everything you do” for Bill. Then she said Hillary pulled her closer, “stared her in the eyes,” and reiterated in a menacing, low voice, “everything you do for Bill.”

She took that as a threat and realized Hillary knew what had happened, that she was trying to silence her. “There could be no question that Hillary was Bill’s fiercest defender in preventing his other women from causing trouble,” Carl Bernstein wrote in his book, “A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” She called Monica Lewinsky, whose sexual encounters with Bill Clinton in the White House led to his impeachment, “a loony toon.” Even with his wife’s best efforts to discredit Paula Jones, President Bill Clinton still paid her $850,000 after she sued him for exposing himself to her.

Though she told friends and co-workers in 1978 what happened — the media interviewed them 21 years later, in 1999 — Broaddrick said she was so traumatized by what happened that she hesitated coming forward publicly. Even though media and political operatives had gotten wind of her rape allegations, she denied it happened because she didn’t think she would be believed. Only because her son, a lawyer, said she had to tell the truth to federal authorities or risk going to jail did she finally tell her story to federal agents and then the media.

I tell Broaddrick that after seeing the “Dateline” piece about her years ago — it’s now on the Internet at http://www.mrctv.org/videos/full-dateline-nbc-juanita-braddrick-bill-cli… — I found her credible. I wondered why what she said about Hillary Clinton trying to silence her wasn’t included in the televised piece.

She said as she was talking in the TV interview about Hillary a producer ran into the room and said it couldn’t be part of the piece. NBC reporter Lisa Myers said Broaddrick did tell her about the encounter but it didn’t make the final cut.

Broaddrick concedes there are no direct witnesses and there is no physical evidence to back up her accusations against the man who became president or his wife, the woman who would be president.

For some reason people just can’t believe the Clintons would do what they did, Broaddrick says. Just before Bill Clinton ran for president, she says he tried to apologize for what he did to her. “I told him to go to hell.”

“I haven’t profited from this in any way,” she said. “I would never try to profit from such a horrible thing.”

Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Thursday in the Life section. Contact him at [email protected] or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.

Source: http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/columns-blogs/paul-harasim/would-trump-use-juanita-broaddrick-attack-clintons-she-s-game

By Jerome Corsi

NEW YORK – Katherine Prudhomme O’Brien, the New Hampshire state legislator who confronted Hillary Clinton in a town-hall rally in Derry, New Hampshire, during the state primary on Jan. 3, explained to WND in an exclusive telephone interview why she was so upset at reporters who defend Mrs. Clinton by suggesting she should not be blamed for her husband’s infidelity.

“This is about rape, not infidelity,” O’Brien insisted, explaining that at the Derry rally her goal was to confront Hillary about Juanita Broaddrick, a woman who went public in an interview with Dateline NBC that broadcast on Feb. 24, 1999, that Clinton had raped her decades earlier, in 1978, while Clinton was yet Arkansas attorney general.

The YouTube video of O’Brien’s encounter with Hillary at the Derry town-hall rally on Jan. 3 shows O’Brien standing to shout her question at Hillary as Hillary at first ignores her and then declares that she does not intend to call on O’Brien for a question, charging that O’Brien was being “very rude.”

“I asked myself what kind of a wife stays with a man who raped Juanita Broaddrick?” O’Brien asked.

In the YouTube clip, the CNN reporter interviewing O’Brien was clearly antagonistic, agreeing with Hillary that suggesting O’Brien was a Republican operative who only heckled Hillary to embarrass her politically.

What do YOU think? Sound off on Hillary’s ‘explosive temper’ in today’s WND poll.

“I was a Democrat but I became a Republican because of what I saw during the Clinton administration of the so-called ‘women who fight for women’ – the height of hypocrisy,” O’Brien told WND.

A rape victim at age 15

O’Brien explained to WND her reaction to the Juanita Broaddrick allegations was explained in part by the fact that she herself, at age 15, was a rape victim.

O’Brien told WND she had a certified receipt from Clinton’s campaign office proving information O’Brien had sent regarding the Broaddrick rape accusations had been received, yet in an encounter with Hillary the previous summer, Hillary had denied knowing anything about Broaddrick’s allegations.

The ‘Stop Hillary’ campaign is on fire! Join the surging response to this theme: ‘Clinton for prosecution, not president’

“If Hillary Clinton does not know about Juanita Broaddrick, she has a dangerous blind spot, she is inept,” O’Brien insisted. “Someone as allegedly astute as Hillary Clinton should understand the difference between rape and infidelity. Why doesn’t Hillary Clinton understand that? What’s her problem? I thought she was the founder of the Rape Crisis Center in Little Rock. I thought she was a lawyer.”

O’Brien’s explanation regarding why Hillary denied knowing about Juanita Broaddrick was Hillary had to lie because it was potentially career-ending for her presidential ambitions if Hillary were to admit she knew about Juanita Broaddrick and still denied her husband had committed rape.

“Everything relies on Hillary Clinton insisting even today that she does not know who Juanita Broaddrick is,” she continued.

“I knew the New Hampshire primary was coming up and I might not have another chance to confront Hillary in person,” she pointed out. “So, I raised my voice, I got to say what I wanted to say, even though Hillary wouldn’t acknowledge me for a question.”

WND asked O’Brien what she wanted to tell Hillary.

“I told her, ‘You won’t acknowledge you know who Juanita Broaddrick is because you know your husband is a rapist. You believe it,’” O’Brien related.

“With that, I told Hillary what I wanted to tell her,” she continued. “I don’t know if the press heard that, because I didn’t have a microphone. But I was speaking as loud as I possibly could and that’s what I was saying. I told Hillary I knew she didn’t have the evidence to prove Juanita is lying, or else she would bring it forward.”

“Instead, Hillary tries to deny she knows anything about Juanita Broaddrick and that’s just not true,” Obrien stressed. “The real story is that Hillary knows exactly who Juanita Broaddrick is and she knows her husband raped her. So what I told Hillary is, “You know your husband raped Juanita Broaddrick and you don’t care. That’s the truth and you know it.’”

O’Brien: ‘I’m sick of this disinformation and dysfunction’

On Saturday, May 14, WND published an article explaining how Kathleen Willey, another victim of a Bill Clinton sexual assault, reacted to a television interview broadcast May 9 in which CNN reporter Chris Cuomo turned antagonistic against GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump for branding Hillary Clinton as the “enabler” of her husband’s sexual crimes.

After watching the televised interaction, Willey penned an open letter to Cuomo, hoping to make sure CNN understands the issue of Bill Clinton’s history of sexual assaults on women from her perspective as a victim.

“I would like to share with you and your friends in the MSM why this subject is important,” Willey pointed out. “This situation is NO longer about that. It’s not about the details of these multiple assaults and rapes involving numerous women who never knew one another, telling the same [or] similar stories.”

O’Brien shared with WND a letter she penned to Willey after the Cuomo interview with Trump.

“A truly brave, strong and intelligent woman would have enough awareness of what was happening around her to know of those sorts of credible allegations about her husband,” O’Brien wrote. “Instead, she pretends to not know who Juanita Broaddrick is.”

“I asked her numerous times on the campaign trail here in New Hampshire what she thought of Broaddrick’s claim that Bill Clinton raped her in the late 70’s,” she continued. “Twice, Hillary told me she doesn’t know who that is and indicated that she does not care to know.

O’Brien agreed with Willey that Hillary was the “enabler” of Bill Clinton’s sexual crimes, an “accessory after the fact” that would make Hillary criminally culpable in any sex crime her husband were to commit.

“It is what Hillary did and continues to do to help hide her husband’s sexual abuse of women that is what makes her an enabler, how she treated Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey,” O’Brien wrote. “Even if a person does not believe a strong enough direct connection can be made between Hillary and the vile, threatening treatment of those women, you must wonder why Hillary is now making such a strong effort to not know anything about the women’s original claims of sexual assault by Bill Clinton.”

“Why doesn’t Cuomo have more intellectual curiosity or depth of understanding about what is an only slightly complex issue?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t expect the son and brother of New York State governors and himself a national journalist, to be too unsophisticated to understand that it is not a one faceted issue of marital infidelity that makes Hillary an enabler,” she stressed. “The only other explanation is that Cuomo is intentionally trying to manipulate public opinion on this issue by his continuing campaign of feigned ignorance.”

In conclusion, O’Brien wrote, “I’m sick of this minimization and dysfunction.”

A Republican, O’Brien told WND she was a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz, not Donald Trump.

“I’m not really big Donald Trump supporter,” she explained. “Somebody asked me if I had been inspired by Trump because he was talking about Bill Clinton’s sexual crimes against women. I just laughed and explained I would be doing this if Donald Trump were running for office or not.”

She continued: “I’m pleased Donald Trump is hearing what I’m saying and following my lead. That’s good, but I intend to continue, no matter what.”

‘It’s about rape, stupid’

Roger Stone and Robert Morrow in the 2015 bestselling book “The Clintons’ War on Women” suggest voters should understand “It’s about the rape, stupid,” paraphrasing the famous phrase about the economy that political consultant James Carville coined in Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign.

Stone and Morrow’s point to stress their conclusion that the serious allegations against Bill Clinton involve sexual violence Clinton has exerted on women against their will, not garden variety marital infidelity, as Hillary’s supporters would like voters to believe.

“Many in the mainstream press are quick to buy the Clintons’ absurdly hypocritical narratives, ” writes Stone in his introduction. “Hilary is an advocate for women as long as you are not one of Bill Clinton’s rape victims or girlfriends.”

Stone continues: “Considering the effectiveness of the Clintons’ spin machine and the basis in much of the mainstream media, it’s not surprising that the public impression is that accusations of rape or sexual assault Bill were disproven.”

But what Stone and Morrow set out to prove is that abundant evidence of Clinton’s sexual crimes against women leave no doubt that the denials by Clinton supporters amount to a “serial trail of deception, disinformation, and crime by the Clintons that goes beyond what we remember from the 1990s.”

Dolly Kyle, a consensual lover with Bill Clinton, came to agree with Stone and Morrow.

In her book “Hillary: The Other Woman,” she shares with readers this diary-like entry:

December 30, 2015:

I watched on television as the nationally beloved comedian Bill Cosby was arrested on sexual assault charges. They say he drugged and raped women and young girls. Billy Clinton raped and sexually assaulted women too. To protect him (actually, to protect her own political career), Billy’s co-conspirator wife Hillary then attacked his victims … and attacked me. Now Hillary is running for president and she pretends to support women; it’s time to talk honestly about that great big lie.

Kyle also referenced Juanita Broaddrick’s famous Twitter message about her 1978 rape by Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton, then the chief law enforcement officer in the state. On Jan. 6, 2016, Broaddrick posted a Tweet that said simply, “It never goes away.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/women-confront-hillary-its-about-rape-stupid/#fA8VSHtfdhvs1E02.99

By Trent Baker

Veteran political strategist was a guest Sunday on John Catsimatidis’ New York AM 970 radio show “The Cats Roundtable,” and the two discussed presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s future in the general election.

“Look, I think Bernie Sanders has to get some of the credit for this. In essence he’s the outsider in the Democratic Party. In some ways, he and Trump have a great deal in common, particularly their rejection of these enormous globalist trade deals like NAFTA and TPP and TPA, that either have, or will, destroy the U.S. job market,” Stone, a former Trump adviser, said.

“I think that gives Trump a real entrée to almost a third of Bernie’s supporters in a general election,” he then added. “I don’t mean his hard-left, ultra-liberal supporters, but I mean the blue-collar Democrats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who feel left behind by the new world order economy, who realize that the manufacturing base in this country has been destroyed by these internationalist deals.”

“So Trump, I think, can build on what Bernie has achieved,” Stone predicted.

See the full interview here: http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/05/15/roger-stone-trump-will-win-one-third-of-bernie-sanders-supporters/

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR9aPtEujYU&list=PLBM20A5-VYS4qZdJJU-vBvCyId0ngcifm

By Marc Caputo

After calling pollsters a waste of money, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reversed course and signed up veteran political strategist and pollster Tony Fabrizio, sources tell POLITICO.

Fabrizio has worked on numerous presidential elections. He is also a top strategist for the Florida U.S. Senate campaign of Rep. Ron DeSantis, masterminded Gov. Rick Scott’s improbable Florida win in 2010 and was pollster for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in his 2015 win. Scott and Bevin share a common bond with Trump: They were both outsider businessmen who bucked the establishment.

Rumored for more than a month, Fabrizio’s hiring still came as a surprise to those who have listened to Trump boast that he doesn’t employ pollsters. Trump has questioned the value of paying for them when so many polls are published each day in the media — and framed that as part of his outsider appeal.

“I don’t have pollsters. I don’t want to waste money on pollsters,” he told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd last August, adding, “I don’t want to be unreal. I want to be me. I have to be me.”

But Fabrizio, who couldn’t be reached for comment, is more than a pollster, according to those who have worked with him and marveled at the accuracy of his surveys and messaging. Steve Schale, longtime Florida strategist and Obama campaign adviser, say Fabrizio’s a bad hire — for Democrats.

“Tony is flat-out one of the smartest dudes I know. He proved it with Rick Scott — much to my personal detriment, he knows how to take a deeply flawed candidate and sell them to the voters,” Schale said. “If I was a Republican running for President or dogcatcher, I’d want him in my corner.”
In hiring Fabrizio, a Fort Lauderdale resident , Trump has access to the state’s most sought-after Republican pollster and adviser. If Trump loses Florida, he more than likely loses his shot at the White House. Considering the high stakes and high quality of Fabrizio’s work, his acquisition by the Trump campaign was seen as a no-brainer.

“This is the best deal Trump ever made,” said Chip Englander, former campaign manager for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, for which Fabrizio polled earlier this year. “Tony is a superstar.” Unlike many Republicans, Fabrizio refrained from taking direct personal shots at Trump during the primary.

Still, when he worked for Paul in August of 2015, he poked fun at Trump’s bad poll numbers with Hispanics and chided statistics guru Nate Silver on Twitter by saying “how dare you question the power of the great Donald of Oz???” He also praised a George Will Washington Post column that bashed Trump and said Fox News’ personality Megyn Kelly’s career would last longer than Trump’s.

After Paul dropped out, Fabrizio began advocating for Trump on Twitter.

Like Trump, Fabrizio knows how to leverage controversy by playing rough. He was one of the masterminds behind the infamous Willie Horton ad that portrayed Democrat Michael Dukakis as soft on crime in the 1988 presidential elections against George H. W. Bush.

“We knew people would go crazy,” Fabrizio told The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times in a 2011 interview. “The networks had wanted to throw us off air, but we already paid them $1 million to run the ad. How many hundreds of millions of free air time did we get?”

In a twist, Fabrizio in 2011 told Trump he wouldn’t work on his presidential campaign if he ran in 2012. Fabrizio, courted by other campaigns, worked for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign instead.

Over the decades, Fabrizio has worked for presidential candidates Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Perry and Paul; for former senators Connie Mack of Florida, Al D’Amato of New York and Bob Bennett of Utah; and for former governors Bob Riley of Alabama, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Mike Foster of Louisiana. He has also advised the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and numerous political committees.

A Brooklyn native, Fabrizio grew up on Long Island and now lives in Fort Lauderdale near another transplanted New Yorker, fellow political operative Roger Stone, a top Trump associate and backer whom Fabrizio met in 1978. Through Stone, Fabrizio met Trump adviser Paul Manafort in the 1990s and the two have worked together on numerous projects. Manfort began advocating for Fabrizio’s hiring soon after he joined Trump’s campaign in March.

As Manafort was hired, Stone was coming back into the Trump campaign’s good graces. In August, Stone parted ways with the campaign when it refused to hire a pollster. Trump didn’t need a pollster after all, however Trump’s general-election prospects have necessitated beefing up his team.

While working for Trump, Fabrizio will stay on the campaign of Rep. DeSantis, according to his senate campaign manager, Brad Herold, who called Fabrizio “one of the smartest minds in Republican politics.” Brian Hughes, campaign manager for one of DeSantis’ rivals, Todd Wilcox, said the impact of Fabrizio shouldn’t be underestimated by Democrats.

“The addition of Tony Fabrizio demonstrates a level of gravitas and political sophistication that should make Democrats lose sleep,” Hughes said. “Tony’s strategic expertise will yield a state by state plan that wins the White House and defends the down ballot races. If you doubt it, go read the archives in Florida from 2010.”

Read more at http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/florida/2016/05/8599300/trump-hires-top-pollster-and-former-scott-adviser-tony-fabrizio

By Jerome Corsi

NEW YORK – Contrary to a Washington Post report, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is not leading Trump’s search for a running mate, according to campaign insiders.

The Post cited two unnamed Republicans on Tuesday who claimed Lewandowski is in charge of the vetting team, but Trump insider Roger Stone told the Chicago Tribune that Lewandowski is “overselling” his role in the VP search.

“He’s crowing about the responsibility of a clerk,” Stone told the paper. “This kind of self-aggrandizement doesn’t serve the candidate well.”

Lewandowski declined to comment to the Tribune.

Trump is the only one in charge, Stone insisted, noting the candidate will “interview everyone who’s a serious contender.”

“That’s why the choice will be outside the box. I think it’ll be daring.”

At the WND Superstore, learn about Hillary Clinton’s history and plans in “Hillary The Other Woman.” Then take action with the Hillary Clinton Investigative Justice Project, and let others know with a bumper sticker declaring “Hillary for prosecution, not president.”

Trump himself, in an Associated Press interview Wednesday, downplayed the assertion that Lewandowski was playing the lead role in the search, saying it’s being carried out by “a group” that includes him and former GOP presidential rival Ben Carson.

“Honestly, we’re all running it,” he said. “It’s very much a group effort.”

WND received no response to an email inquiry to Lewandowski and Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, asking for clarification of Lewandowski’s role in the VP search and in talks with the Republican National Committee regarding the convention.

Lewandowski ‘humbled to be on the team’

On Monday, Robert Costa reported in the Washington Post that Lewandowski will “oversee” the vice-presidential search.

“Lewandowski, Trump’s traveling confident and campaign manager, will be in charge of the team that will survey and vet potential vice-presidential candidates for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, two top Republicans said,” Costa wrote, siting two anonymous sources supposedly familiar with Lewandowski’s responsibilities.

“Lewandowski formally took charge of the hunt for a running mate last week and has been described inside and outside the campaign as the point person for all related questions and meetings, the Republicans said,” Costa continued.

On Tuesday, Ben Kamisar in the Hill echoed the Post’s reporting, saying Lewandowski “will helm” Trump’s search for a running mate.

In a Tuesday evening appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News television show, Hannity introduced Lewandowski as Trump’s pick to lead the search for vice president.

But in the interview, Lewandowski appeared to back off from Hannity’s description, insisting only that he was “humbled to be on the team” conducting the search for Trump.

Lewandowski heading Trump’s RNC talks?

On April 22, Bloomberg reported a “secret meeting” took place between Trump adviser Paul Manafort and RNC head Reince Priebus at the RNC spring meeting in Florida. Bloomberg suggested that Trump planned to work with the RNC, despite campaign rhetoric charging the GOP primary and convention rules were “rigged” against Trump.

There was no mention in the Bloomberg report that Lewandowski attended the RNC meeting between Manafort and Priebus.

On Sunday, Politico reported “senior Trump aides,” including Lewandowski, Manafort and political director Rick Wiley were meeting with top RNC officials to work out details of a final fundraising agreement.

While the Politico article listed Lewandowski first, there was no suggestion in the report that Lewandowski was leading the discussions.

The Politico article published Sunday further reported the conversations “are also partly an effort to lay the groundwork for a Thursday meeting in Washington including Trump, Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who announced last Thursday that he is withholding his endorsement until Trump outlines a stronger commitment to conservative principles.”

On Monday, CBS reported that Lewandowski attended the RNC meeting along with Manafort and Wiley, adding that newly appointed deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner also attended.

Glassner’s political credits include senior adviser to Sen. Bob Dole from January 1986 though January 2001, working on George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign and acting as top adviser to vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in 2008.

Lewandowski vs. Manafort: Who’s in charge?

Last week, WND reported Trump insiders accused Lewandowski of micromanaging the appointment of Steven Mnuchin, a Wall Street veteran who worked for 17 years with Goldman Sachs, as campaign finance chairman. The insiders said the process was designed to keep Mnuchin’s candidacy from Manafort, who was actively pursuing other candidates, believing he had been appointed by Trump to nominate the campaign’s finance chairman.

Manafort is a GOP presidential campaign veteran who began managing Ronald Reagan’s convention delegate operation in 1976.

The opponents of Lewandowski within Trump’s campaign charge the campaign manager is isolating Trump, much as John Erlichman and H. R. Haldeman isolated President Richard Nixon to his detriment during the Watergate scandal.

The internal struggle appears to have begun almost from the first moments Manafort was hired by Trump to manage his delegate operation. The hire came in April after it became apparent that Trump might not gain the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot at the convention.

CNN reported April 7 that the loss of the Wisconsin primary and the delegate gains made by Sen. Ted Cruz led to a campaign shake-up in which Manafort would be playing an expanded role beyond managing Trump’s delegate operation, with Lewandowski playing “a shrinking role” as campaign manager.

CBS correspondent Major Garrett reported that after Manafort was hired, Lewandowski was “reduced to a role that amounts to body man and scheduler.”

Politico reported in April that Trump, bristling at efforts by Manafort to make him appear more “presidential,” was taking steps “to return some authority to Manafort’s chief internal rival,” Lewandowski.

Lewandowski was at the center of controversy in March when then-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields pressed misdemeanor battery charges alleging he grabbed her arm during a Trump press conference in Jupiter, Florida, on March 8. Last month, Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg decided not to prosecute Lewandowski, explaining he didn’t have enough to bring the case.

His political credits include working as an administrative assistant to Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, before the congressman was convicted of corruption charges in the Jack Abramoff scandal and working as campaign manager and communications director for Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., in his unsuccessful 2002 re-election bid.

Jerome R. Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D., is a WND senior staff writer. He has authored many books, including No. 1 N.Y. Times best-sellers “The Obama Nation” and “Unfit for Command.” Corsi’s latest book is “Partners in Crime.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/trump-insider-lewandowski-overselling-role-in-vp-search/#RfymeK7Ct8Rpq0lm.99