Lewandowski: 'I hate Paul Manafort,' but he and Roger Stone 'were unbelievably unfairly treated'

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski freely admits he's no fan of successor Paul Manafort, with whom he famously locked horns in a backstage struggle for power on the 2016 campaign staff. 

Despite that rancorous personal history, Lewandowski now says he believes Manafort and former Trump adviser Roger Stone "were unbelievably unfairly treated."

Manafort reportedly Wednesday was released from prison amid the coronavirus. Manafort’s lawyers in past weeks have requested that their client be allowed to serve his sentence under home confinement, citing his age and pre-existing medical conditions, two factors that put him at higher risk for contracting the highly virus. 

Manafort in June 2018 began serving a 7 1/2-year sentence on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering, failing to report foreign bank accounts, and unregistered lobbying for foreign interests.

Lewandowski was Trump's first campaign manager but was fired in June 2016, as Manafort took an increasingly prominent role, then led the campaign for a couple of months before quitting and being replaced by Kellyanne Conway.

"I hate Paul Manafort, which is easy to say," Lewandowski said in a podcast interview for The Pod's Honest Truth with David Brody. "But that being said, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were unbelievably unfairly treated. For the crimes they were ultimately  found guilty of by a jury of their peers, they were treated very differently than anybody else. Because if the FBI wanted to question either Paul Manafort or Roger Stone, they could have picked up the phone, called their attorneys, asked them to come in. They didn’t need to do these midnight raids, with gunships and helicopters overhead.

Stone’s motion for a new trial was denied last month after a federal judge said his legal team failed to prove a juror in the case was biased.

"I mean there were more people raiding Roger Stone’s house than the Osama bin Laden raid," Lewandowski said. "That is insanity in this country. And let me just put it in perspective for your viewers who don’t know who Roger Stone is. He had no access to capital because he wasn’t wealthy. He didn’t have a valid U.S. passport. He has never been convicted of a crime before and didn’t own a weapon. So to send that type of firepower in at 4 o’clock in the morning goes to show you how overzealous the government can be sometimes."

As for his feelings about his erstwhile rival on the 2016 campaign, it sounds like he's still working those out.

"Look – am I sad to see Paul in jail?" he asks himself. "Ah, maybe a little, maybe not. But the truth is, he was treated unfairly."