Thread by @dsamuelsohn

NEW: Another newsy nugget from the @thisisinsider Trump oral history project.

Corey Lewandowski acknowledges Trump 2016 did indeed pay actors to appear at the Trump Tower campaign announcement event.
businessinsider.com/trump-aide-say…

Donald Trump's top 2016 aide previously denied the campaign paid actors to appear at the future president's big campaign launch announcement at Trump Tower, yet that same official recently told Insider people were indeed hired to show up.

The Trump campaign in 2016 fiercely rejected the claims. Corey Lewandowski, then-Trump's campaign manager, told Insider at the time that he "unequivocally" denied the allegations. businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-…

"You know Donald Trump. There is nobody who believes that when Donald Trump goes somewhere he does not generate the biggest, largest, and most rambunctious crowds on the planet," Lewandowski said back in July 2015.

"It's just not true, unequivocally. The Donald Trump campaign and Donald Trump did not pay anybody to attend his announcement," Lewandowski added in July 15.

Lewandowski now has another take on the situation:
"That's a Michael Cohen special. Michael Cohen decided that he was going to go hire one of his buddies and pay his buddy without getting any campaign approval. You know, $50 for every person to come in, to stand in Trump Tower."

Lewandowski's comments were made to @thisisinsider as part of our definitive oral history of how Trump took over the GOP. Check that big project out here ($): businessinsider.com/how-trump-took…

Cohen has a different assessment. Speaking to Insider for the oral history project, he said Lewandowski was fibbing. Cohen said Trump hired David Schwartz, a partner at the Gotham Relations & Communications public relations firm, to organize the event "professionally."

"Any allegation of payments to actors is an absolute lie that was promoted by Corey Lewandowski," added Cohen, the former Trump personal attorney who'd go on to plead guilty and serve prison time over the Stormy Daniels hush money affair.

Reached for comment, Schwartz confirmed to Insider his firm had been hired to orchestrate the entire campaign announcement.

"That event was really our brainchild: The most famous escalator ride in the history of politics was that one. Bottom line is, we had thousands of people there, & then the press accused us of hiring thousands of actors...

...Based on the fee that I got, that would not have been a good business decision on anyone's part. The reality is we hired 50 people, some of whom were part-time actors I found out later on," Schwartz said.

"But we hired 50 people to help coordinate an event that brought in thousands of people. There were people at the door that couldn't get in. That night, all of the sudden, I got accused of hiring thousands of actors," he added.

A 2-minute video posted June 16, 2015, on YouTube from Schwartz' firm touts its work at the Trump campaign event. It features Schwartz using a bullhorn and leading a call-and-response to the pro-Trump crowd in the lobby of Trump Tower.

Check out the full @thisisinsider oral history of Trump's GOP take over w/ a subscription. You'll get access to much more from across our entire newsroom. Sign up here: businessinsider.com/how-trump-took…