When Michael Cohen met with congressional investigators behind closed doors last year, he reportedly said he did not know whether Donald Trump had prior knowledge of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
Lanny Davis, Cohen's lawyer, says Cohen stands by that testimony, even though recent news reports indicate Cohen now is willing to offer Special Counsel Robert Mueller different information.
Questions about Cohen's testimony about the meeting may earn him a return trip to Capitol Hill.
What's new: This information about what Cohen told Congress about Trump — reported here for the first time — colors in the gaps of a joint statement Tuesday by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner that got buried under the Cohen-Manafort news avalanche.
Senators Burr and Warner want Cohen to come back before the Senate Intel Committee to rectify the difference between his testimony and those conflicting news reports.
Last year, when questioned under oath by lawmakers on the House intelligence committee, Cohen not only said that he himself had no foreknowledge of the meeting but that he had no idea whether Trump did either, according to three sources with knowledge of his testimony.
A source briefed on Cohen's testimony said he repeated that testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
I asked Davis why he didn't shoot down last month's stories.
Davis, after a long day of TV hits defending Cohen, said: "It was painful. We were not the source, we could not confirm, and we could not correct. We had to be silent because of the sensitivity needed in the middle of a criminal investigation."
Now that Cohen is willing to work with federal and state prosecutors, the question turns to what he may know that pertains to the Russia investigation.
“I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests — I’m not sure it proves — that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton,” Davis told PBS’s “NewsHour” Wednesday.
CNN:
However, a person familiar with Cohen’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in October 2017 said Cohen was interviewed extensively about the Russian interference campaign but did not provide any information to suggest Trump had advanced warning about hacking.
Mueller’s team has examined Cohen’s role in at least two episodes involving Russian interests, according to people familiar with that probe.
(...)
Cohen has special insight into Trump’s world in part because of the president’s decision to carry over a habit from private life — treating his businesses, his family and even his charity as parts of the same operation — into the more rigidly regulated worlds of campaigns and governing.
Exclusive: Michael Cohen told Congress he doesn’t know if Trump knew about Russia meeting (Axios)
After fast turn against Trump, Michael Cohen threatens to leverage secrets against the president (WaPo)