Laura Barrón-López on Lewandowski Gun Request: ‘He Has Wanted a Federally Issued Firearm for Some Time Now’

RUSH EXCERPT:

BarrÓN-LÓPEZ: “Well, he’s been wanting that for some time, steph. So I’ve been chasing this story for a while. And our colleague didi Martinez, we got it over the line today. And Wall Street Journal also reported some of this in their piece that McKay was referring to. But essentially Corey Lewandowski, our sources, multiple sources, current government officials, former government officials who have knowledge of this told us that he has wanted a federally issued firearm for some time now, going back all the way to at least the summer of last year. And that he tried to get one, tried to get authorization to be issued one. And what we were told with, according to sources with knowledge of what happened, was that the the the pursuit became so contentious inside DHS to get this gun that a veteran ice lawyer had said, no, there’s no legal basis, there’s no legal justification for him to have a gun. And that that lawyer was then subsequently escorted out of the building, put on paid leave, and then eventually, later in the year, moved over to FEMA. And that was a veteran lawyer inside of ice, inside of DHS, a career official. And so this is something that just to speak to this culture of fear that McKay and David are talking about, it’s something I’ve heard from current DHS officials, from former DHS officials multiple times since the administration took control, since Trump came into power, and even just today, one source inside of the government was telling did describe it as tyrannical in terms of Corey Lewandowski and Christine noem’s leadership at DHS. And we also were told by multiple sources that Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have applied polygraph tests to employees in DHS, and there are employees at DHS that have told me that they are and at other government agencies, but mainly at DHS, that they are very fearful of being polygraphed and of being watched and of being tracked on any of their government devices. And so that is why it is so hard to, you know, source in these agencies to talk to people who are willing to come forward with this information, because”