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Cohen told panel Trump lawyer pushed false claim
WASHINGTON — Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former longtime personal attorney, told a House panel during closed-door hearings earlier this year that he had been instructed by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow to falsely claim in a 2017 statement to Congress that negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, according to people familiar with his testimony.
In fact, Cohen later said discussions on the Moscow tower continued into June of the presidential election year, after it was clear that Trump would be the GOP nominee. Cohen is serving three years in prison for lying to Congress, financial crimes and campaign finance violations.
House Democrats are now scrutinizing whether Sekulow or other Trump attorneys played a role in shaping Cohen’s 2017 testimony to Congress. Cohen has said he made the false statement to help hide the fact that Trump had potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in a possible Russian project while he was running for president.
“We’re trying to find out whether anyone participated in the false testimony that Cohen gave to this committee,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview. He did not comment on who, if anyone, might have instructed Cohen to lie.
Jane Serene Raskin and Patrick Strawbridge, attorneys for Sekulow, said in a statement that “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.’
“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,” they added.
Cohen’s assertions about Sekulow are laid out in transcripts of his February and March appearances before the House intelligence panel that lawmakers released Monday evening.
Cohen’s closed-door testimony before the committee led congressional Democrats this month to press Sekulow and other Trump family lawyers who were involved in a joint defense agreement for more information about work they did preparing Cohen’s 2017 statement. Schiff has asked four attorneys to turn over documents and schedule interviews with the panel, which they have rebuffed as a threat to the protection provided to communications between lawyers and clients.
In his public testimony before the House Oversight Committee in January, Cohen said, “Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”
He accused Sekulow of making changes to the 2017 statement.
“There were changes made, additions, Jay Sekulow, for one,” Cohen told the panel.
Sekulow denied the claim by Cohen at the time, calling such assertions “completely false.”
In subsequent closeddoor appearances before the House Intelligence Committee in February and March, Cohen was more specific, saying Sekulow told him it would be important to use Jan. 31, 2016, as the date when discussions about the Moscow project ended, according to the people familiar with his testimony, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the panel’s ongoing investigation.
Sekulow told Cohen the date was significant because it came before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, the opening contest of the White House race, Cohen said to the committee.