Trump aide: I lied about his property link to Russia
DONALD Trump’s former personal lawyer pleaded guilty yesterday to lying to Congress about the Russia investigation.
Michael Cohen’s admissions about a Trump property deal in Moscow during the 2016 race for the White House puts the President under intense pressure over his links to Russia.
Mr Trump dismissed the claims by his former right-hand man, calling him ‘weak’ and a ‘liar’ – before, a few hours later, abruptly cancelling a G20 meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Yesterday’s development was the latest twist in the US department of justice’s investigation into whether Mr Trump or his inner circle colluded with alleged Russian attempts to influence the presidential election. Mr Cohen admitted he worked on negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow deep into the President’s White House campaign.
He said he talked to officials close to Mr Putin as late as June 2016, around the time Mr Trump won the Republican nomination. Previously, he had told Congress that talks ended in January.
Federal court documents revealed Mr Cohen talked to Mr Putin’s press secretary to get financing and locate land for the tower.
He also discussed setting up a meeting between ‘the two big guys’, apparently referring to Mr Putin and Mr Trump.
Mr Cohen ‘gave the false impression that the Moscow project ended before the very first (Republican) primary in the hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations’, the court documents state. Mr Cohen, 52, has already admitted campaign finance violations by handling hush money for two women who claim they had affairs with Mr Trump, including the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.
He has also admitted tax evasion and bank fraud and will be sentenced later this month.
Mr Cohen was Mr Trump’s fixer at his Trump Organisation property business for a decade and once said he would ‘take a bullet’ for him.
But the two fell out when Mr Cohen was investigated by the department of justice special counsel. Now he has turned against the President by cooperating with investigators and agreeing a plea bargain deal.
During 2016 Mr Trump repeatedly called for a softer line on the Kremlin even though it is America’s chief political foe. If Mr Cohen’s claims are true it might explain Mr Trump’s bizarre fondness for Mr Putin.
After the guilty plea, Mr Trump said Mr Cohen was a ‘weak person’ who was lying to try to ‘get a much lesser prison sentence’.
The President, who has repeatedly denied having business interests in Russia, then flew to a G20 meeting in Argentina.
But an hour after saying ‘I will probably be meeting with President Putin’, he tweeted that the meeting had been called off, claiming it was over the Ukraine crisis.
The special counsel Robert Mueller has so far obtained guilty pleas from 36 people covering 192 criminal counts in his inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Earlier this month Mr Trump gave him written answers to questions sent him a year earlier. Since then there has been a flurry of activity and some are speculating the inquiry is reaching its conclusion.
‘False impression on Moscow project’