I was told to lie
Cohen testified Trump att’y behind Russia fibs
President Trump’s former personal lawyer told Congress that a member of Trump’s legal team advised him to lie under oath about the end date of negotiations to build a Trump branded tower in Moscow, it was revealed Monday.
In a transcript unsealed Monday of ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s interviews with the House Intelligence Committee in February and March, Cohen says Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow told him to lie about the Moscow talks in 2017 congressional testimony.
“I want to ask you again, who suggested January 2016 as the date for you to include as the end of the Trump Tower Moscow project?” Cohen, the president’s former fixer, was asked, according to the transcripts.
“To the best of my recollection, it was Jay Sekulow,” Cohen replied.
“You said Sekulow did know it was false… is that correct?” he was pressed.
“That is correct,” Cohen declared.
Trump was pleased with the lie, Cohen claimed in the newly unsealed testimony.
“When I would speak to Mr. Sekulow, he would, you know, say the client is happy with the way the statement goes,” Cohen added. “And then he even reached out to me after the hearings to say that the president heard you did great and loves you and everything is going to be good, everything will be fine.”
Cohen said the lie was meant to get across the idea that the talks ended before the 2016 presidential campaign heated up.
In his statement to Congress in 2017, Cohen said talks about a Trump Tower project in Moscow ended in January 2016, before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.
But, in fact, the talks ended in June 2016, after Trump had enough delegates to clinch the GOP presidential nomination.
According to Cohen, lying about the negotiations’ end date “diminished any relationship that Mr. Trump has or had with Russia,” the transcripts show. He also told Congress that he talked to Sekulow about a pardon, the transcripts show.
The intelligence panel’s release of the sealed transcripts comes two weeks after Cohen reported to federal prison for a three-year sentence. He pleaded guilty last year to campaign finance violations, lying to Congress and other crimes.
In that guilty plea, Cohen admitted he misled lawmakers by saying he had abandoned the Trump Tower Moscow project in January 2016, when in fact he pursued it for months afterward as Trump campaigned for the presidency.
Sekulow’s lawyers dismissed Cohen’s claim as yet another whopper by Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer. “Michael Cohen’s alleged statements are more of the same from him and confirm the observations of prosecutors in the Southern District of New York that Cohen’s ‘instinct to blame others is strong,’ ” Sekulow lawyers Jane Raskin and Patrick Strawbridge said in a statement.
“That this or any committee would rely on the word of Michael Cohen for any purpose — much less to try and pierce the attorney-client privilege and discover confidential communications of four respected lawyers — defies logic, well-established law and common sense.”
Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis defended his client’s testimony and challenged his doubters to “testify under oath.”
Trump’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said the president is “very angry” over Cohen’s testimony to Congress.
“He testified before (House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah) Cummings that he never asked for a job. Perjury,” Giuliani said of Cohen. “That he never asked for a pardon. Perjury. Plus four more including representing foreign governments. This is why this whole witch-hunt is so sick to affect a decent man’s reputation based on perjury from a pathological liar.”