Rudy Giuliani went back on television Sunday and made some more revelations with regard to President Trump's communication with Michael Cohen about his testimony before Congress and about how long negotiations continued over the potential to build Trump Tower Moscow.
On Meet the Press, Giuliani insisted Cohen "ran" the Moscow project and negotiations went on throughout 2016, probably up to as far as October or November.
The new timetable means that Mr. Trump was seeking a deal at the time he was calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. He was seeking a deal when he gave interviews questioning the legitimacy of NATO, a favorite talking point of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. And he was seeking a deal when, in July 2016, he called on Russia to release hacked Democratic emails that Mr. Putin’s government was rumored at the time to have stolen.
The Trump Tower Moscow discussions were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won,” Mr. Giuliani quoted Mr. Trump as saying during an interview with The New York Times. It was one of a flurry of interviews Mr. Giuliani did on Sunday amid fallout from a disputed report by BuzzFeed News that President Trump had personally directed his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, to lie to Congress about the negotiations over the skyscraper.
(...)
Mr. Giuliani also acknowledged that Mr. Trump might have talked to Mr. Cohen before his congressional testimony but he said his client had never instructed Mr. Cohen to lie.
CNN:
"I don't know if it happened or didn't happen. It may be attorney-client privilege if it happened, where I can't acknowledge it. But I have no knowledge that he spoke to him, but I'm telling you I wasn't there then," Giuliani said on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper.
He continued, "So what if he talked to him about it?"
Giuliani said as far as he knew, Trump had not had discussions with Cohen where Trump "told him or counseled him to lie."
NYT:
Mr. Trump acknowledged discussing the Moscow project with Mr. Cohen in written responses that the president gave Mr. Mueller’s investigators days before they revealed that Mr. Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
“There was no question that he was asked by the special counsel a question that said, ‘Did you talk to him before he testified?’” Mr. Giuliani said.
“There were questions like, ‘Did you talk about the Moscow project with Michael Cohen?’ to which we answered yes.”
Later in the day, Mr. Giuliani said he was merely allowing for the possibility that the president and Mr. Cohen could have discussed the Moscow project through the election but that no notes or call logs indicated specific conversations about Russia.
Giuliani says that when he previously said there was no collusion on the campaign, he did not know for sure what everyone on the campaign was doing. He said that is why he often added the caveat, "to my knowledge." He also told Chuck Todd he does believe Trump is being honest with him. He blames his - and the president's - conflicting assertions over time on the complicated nature of the subject matter.
Moscow Skyscraper Talks Continued Through ‘the Day I Won,’ Trump Is Said to Acknowledge (NYT)
Giuliani says Trump might have talked to Cohen about testimony (CNN)