Lawyers for Trump, Cohen walk back recent remarks

NEWYORK— The lawyers speaking publicly on behalf of President Donald Trump and Michael Cohen have been fumbling the facts of late.

Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, spent recent days walking back his bombshell assertions that his client could tell the special counsel that Trump had prior knowledge of a meeting with a Russian lawyer to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

“I should have been much clearer that I could not confirm the story,” Davis said Monday, attempting to clean up his comments in interviews last week after Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and bank fraud.

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, caused a stir last week when he told The Washington Post that Trump had sought his advice on the possibility of granting a pardon to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He said the discussion happened before Manafort’s conviction last week on tax and bank fraud charges.

Giuliani told the Post that he counseled against the move at least until the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — but Fox News later reported that Giuliani said Trump had not broached the idea of a pardon for Manafort specifically.

Federal ethics rules frown on lawyers making comments intended to prejudice a jury or engaging in fraud or dishonesty, but legal ethics expert Steven Lubet said there’s no boundary crossed by an inaccurate public statement.

“This is, I think, what I think some of the ethics opinions would call mere puffery, and typically that is not subject to discipline,” said Lubet, of Northwestern University law school.

“In the age of 24/7 news, it’s a hopeless quest to expect people to know what they’re talking about,” Lubet added, jokingly.