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Corey Lewandowski to join CNN

Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is joining CNN as a political commentator, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.

It's a salaried position and will make Lewandowski exclusive to CNN, effective immediately.

The hiring comes just three days after Trump fired Lewandowski, ending the tenure of the fiery operative who faced a steady string of controversies while guiding Trump's skeleton campaign operation to a shocking victory in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. That same afternoon, his first in-studio interview was with CNN's Dana Bash (an NBC News reporter caught up with him outside of Lewandowski's apartment as he headed down to the studio).

Following his interview with Bash on Monday, Lewandowski went straight from the set and into a meeting with CNN executives according to a separate source who witnessed Lewandowski enter the meeting.

Though CNN is often the target of Trump's insults, Trump has a history with CNN president Jeff Zucker. Trump's reality show "The Apprentice" premiered on NBC in 2004, when Zucker was president of NBC's television group. In an interview with POLITICO earlier this month, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Trump had once called Zucker his "personal booker." (CNN declined to respond to Scarborough's comments.)

Minutes after news broke of Lewandowski's hiring, Trump sent two tweets attacking CNN for a piece they did fact checking his comments about Hillary Clinton's refugee plan.

"CNN, which is totally biased in favor of Clinton, should apologize. They knew they were wrong," he tweeted, linking to a report by the conservative website Breitbart.

"Here is another CNN lie. The Clinton News Network is losing all credibility. I’m not watching it much anymore" Trump said, linking to another article about CNN fact checking from Breitbart.

All Trump campaign employees are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, which prohibits them from releasing any confidential or disparaging information about Trump. According to the Associated Press, the NDA says employees are restricted from publicly disclosing information "of a private, proprietary or confidential nature or that Mr. Trump insists remain private" or confidential and is binding during employment and "and at all times thereafter."

But that likely won't be an issue for Lewandowski. Hours after his firing, Lewandowski only spoke glowingly about Trump and continued to tout the candidate's message.

"It's been an honor and privilege to be part of this," he told Bash the day he was fired.

Lewandowski is not the first former high ranking campaign operative to join a cable network soon after departing the campaign. Rick Tyler, formerly Sen. Ted Cruz's communications director, joined MSNBC four days after being fired for posting on social media a story which claimed that Sen. Marco Rubio insulted the Bible (the story turned out to be inaccurate).

Tyler said in an interview he also signed an NDA but that he did not have a problem with honoring the agreement considering he was still loyal to Cruz after his departure.

"Corey seems to be really where I was; He worked for Trump, was loyal to Trump and will continue to be loyal to Trump, and he has maintained he wants to continue to help him. I don’t know if that’s a result of his NDA or probably more likely he just feels personally loyal to him," Tyler said, adding the hire was "a good move" for all involved.

Lewandowski himself has had his own run-ins with CNN reporters. In November, Lewandowski warned CNN's Trump embed Noah Gray to "get back in the pen or he's f------ blacklisted," according to a recording of the incident. In another incident, Lewandowski reportedly physically pushed Gray away from Trump.

Some CNN staffers were privately grumbling on Thursday about Lewandowski's hiring, especially in light of how he has treated journalists. Lewandowski personally placed a POLITICO reporter on the campaign's "blacklist" and earlier this year, he was charged with misdemeanor battery for forcibly grabbing reporter Michelle Fields as she tried to ask Trump a question following an event in March (prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue the case).

CNN is one of the only networks who pays political commentators so are specifically Trump supporters. At CNN, Lewandowski will join former Reagan White House political director Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany, a lawyer and conservative columnist.

Lewandowski did not respond to questions about whether Trump blessed his hiring or whether his ability to discuss the inner workings of the campaign will limited by a non-disclosure agreement.

This post has been updated throughout.

Ken Vogel and Alex Weprin contributed to this report.