Lewandowski considering legal action against reporter who entered home office without permission

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is considering legal action against New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi after she entered his office without permission. 

 

“I can confirm I did not grant her permission to enter my office,” Lewandowski told Fox News on Monday. 

Lewandowski’s remarks come after Nuzzi told the Columbia Journalism Review that she briefly entered Lewandowski’s townhouse in an effort to interview him for a story about former White House staffer Hope Hicks. 

{mosads}”I headed over there from the White House. I tried to knock on the basement door, but the gate wasn’t open,” Nuzzi said. “Then I walked up the steps to the main door and knocked for, like, 10 minutes. And I’m knocking, knocking, nobody’s answering.” 

“But after a while, I just touched the door knob, and the door was open. I walked in and I’m in the house, by myself,” she continued. “So I took this photo of the quote on a wall. I peered around but I didn’t walk fully into the house.” 

Nuzzi proceeded to contact her boyfriend, who advised it “probably wasn’t legal” she entered Lewandowski’s residence without permission. 

“I texted my boyfriend, ‘You know, I just walked into the house, because nobody was answering at the door.’ And he said it probably wasn’t legal and that I should leave. I was like, ‘F—,’ ” Nuzzi added. 

According to Nuzzi, Lewandowski lives in a complex that includes the offices of Turnberry Solutions, a D.C. lobbying firm. 

 

“In September, Corey Lewandowski told Politico, ‘Get your facts right… I have nothing to do with Turnberry Solutions.’ Mr. Lewandowski, who hasn’t been registered as a lobbyist since 2011, reportedly signed a noncompete when he departed his firm, Avenue Strategies, in May 2017, which prevents him from lobbying or directing others to lobby for foreign or domestic clients for a year, according to his former partner there,” Nuzzi told Fox News.

“So it’s very interesting that Mr. Lewandowski refers to the offices of Turnberry Solutions, in his statement to Fox News, as ‘my office.’ If Mr. Lewandowski has nothing to do with Turnberry Solutions, why would he be in a position to grant or deny anyone permission to enter offices belonging to Turnberry Solutions?” she asked. 

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News senior judicial analyst, said Tuesday in an interview on the network that, while Nuzzi trespassed, the fact that it was into an office as opposed to a home may be a factor in how “aggressive” law enforcement decides to be if Lewandowski were to pursue action. 

“You can do that [trespass] by just sticking your hand in,” Napolitano noted.

The difference is a key factor, according to Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge. 

 

Law enforcement is “more aggressive” when breaking and entering occurs at a home as opposed to an office, Napolitano said.

“Either way she broke, entered, trespassed,” he added. 

Nuzzi’s employer, New York Magazine, said they stood by the reporter’s methods. 

“We stand by Olivia’s reporting methods and don’t believe she did anything wrong,” a magazine spokesperson told Fox.