President donald trump personally reached out to two of his former campaign aides – his first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and his deputy campaign manager, David Bossie – to sound them out about working with the administration as crisis managers on the trump impeachment investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

The response tracks with the steps taken by previous presidential administrations when confronted with independent inquiries like the one now being conducted by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who was appointed by the Justice Department last week to investigate the Kremlin’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 campaign, including contacts between trump campaign aides and Russian officials.