Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s first campaign manager, denied Thursday that he is currently working for a payday lending company that has prompted conflict-of-interest questions tied to his relationship to the White House.
During a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, Lewandowski, an informal adviser to Trump, refused to answer a question from an audience member about whether Ohio-based Community Choice is one of his clients.
“If you want to have a discussion back and forth, we can do that, but let me tell you how that works,” Lewandowski said, according to BuzzFeed News. “When you get the podium, you get to talk as long as you want.”
But in a session with reporters after the City Club of Cleveland event, Lewandowski denied having a current relationship with Community Choice.
He acknowledged that the payday lender was a client of his previous firm, Avenue Strategies, but said a draft contract between Community Choice and his new firm, Lewandowski Strategic Advisors, was never executed.
“Correct,” Lewandowski replied when a reporter asked if that meant the company was not currently a client of his new firm. Asked if he gives advice to the company, Lewandowski did not deny it.
“I give advice all the time to all kinds of people,” Lewandowski said. “I give advice — free advice — all the time. And when people call me, you know what I do? I answer their telephone calls.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday that it obtained a draft contract showing the Ohio-based payday lending company offered Lewandowski a $20,000-a-month retainer in return for “strategic advice and counsel designed to further the goals of Community Choice Financial.”
Community Choice Financial has advocated for the Trump administration to block or overturn federal financial regulations. Payday lenders such as these have fought efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to curb what it considers to be abusive loan practices.
Lewandowski, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, called for Trump to fire Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who is a holdover from the Obama administration.
Asked by host Chuck Todd if he has a client who would want Cordray fired, Lewandowski said: “No, no. I have no clients whatsoever.”
When Lewandowski was pressed on Thursday about his call for Trump to fire Cordray, he said: “I don’t make one dime on that decision.”
