If Donald Trump’s former campaign staffers were assigned superlatives, the one deemed least likely to flourish in his second act may be Corey Lewandowski. The former campaign manager has proven too toxic to attach his name to a lobbying firm, too much of an outlier to cash in on his connections à la Reince Priebus or Sean Spicer, and thus far too insignificant to play as grand a role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe as, say, Paul Manafort. In recent days, however, Lewandowski has enjoyed a renewed surge of importance as his role in the Trump campaign’s relations with Russia comes under fresh scrutiny.

Last week, former Trump foreign-policy adviser Carter Page told members of the House Intelligence Committee that Lewandowski had approved his July 2016 trip to Moscow on the condition that he go as a private citizen, and not as a representative of the campaign. Back in March, however, Lewandowski told Politico that he didn’t remember whether he’d approved the trip, adding, “I’ve never met or spoken to Carter Page in my life.”

But on Tuesday night, his story was different. “Now, my memory has been refreshed, but to be clear, from what I understand and what I recall, that email was sent on June 19 of 2016, so about 18 months ago,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “It also happened to be Father’s Day on a Sunday, and it also happened to be the day prior to me being terminated from the campaign. So with all due respect, there were many other things on my mind that day other than trying to understand why a volunteer was telling me he may or may not be traveling outside the country.”

To be perfectly fair, June 19 was rather jam-packed. For months, Lewandowski had been embroiled in a feud with Ivanka Trump, which came to a head that week when she learned Lewandowski was leaking negative stories about her husband, Jared Kushner. It was the perfect excuse for Ivanka, who had been urging her father to get rid of Lewandowski. (The bullish campaign manager had also come under fire for manhandling then-Brietbart reporter Michelle Fields, as well as his general demeanor among staffers.) On June 20, one day after Page sent his e-mail, Lewandowski was publicly escorted by security out of Trump Tower. Considering the father of four was about to lose his job—and that, as Lewandowski pointed out, June 19 was Father’s Day—his correspondence with Page may legitimately have slipped his mind.