UPDATED with President Donald Trump canceling G20 meeting with Vladimir Putin: Michael Cohen is a liar Trump told reporters on the White House lawn a couple hours after his longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to giving false information to Congress about Trumps efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
“What he is trying to do, because he is a weak person, hes got himself a big prison sentence and hes trying to get a lesser prison sentence by making up a story,”Trump scoffed on the White House lawn, as he prepared to go to the G20 summit in Argentina, where he was scheduled to meet with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin.
“I decided not to do” the project,” Trump insisted, saying, “The primary reason: I was focused on running for President.” But he added, “There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance I would not have won, in which case I would have gone back into the business,” asking rhetorically why he should have been penalized financially while campaigning.
“There was nothing wrong if I did do it,” Trump said of Cohens new claims he kept Trump apprised of Trump Tower Moscow talks into summer of 16. Simultaneously, Trump insisted Cohen “is lying to get a reduced sentence, okay?”
After ending the presser and leaving for Argentina, Trump tweeted hed pulled the plug on his Putin meeting, citing recent Russian aggression against Ukraine:
….in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin. I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2018
Hours earlier, Trumps former attorney put in a surprise appearance at federal court in lower Manhattan to plead guilty to misleading Congress about his contacts with Russia, sending TV news outlets scrambling.
“I made these statements to be consistent with Individual 1s [Trump] political message… and to be loyal to Individual 1,” Trumps personal attorney for more than a decade said in court today, according to various media outlets.
Cohen now says he had discussions with Trump about the real estate developers effort to build Trump Tower Moscow into summer of 2016 – by which time Trump was presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.
Cohen previously testified before Congress that Moscow deal talks fizzled in January of 2016, before Trump was presumptive nominee.
In this mornings blockbuster move, Cohen also said he had communicated with Putins office about the Trump real estate project, after previously insisting he had not.
Cohen previously had said Trump was not was never briefed when deal fell apart in January 16. Today in court, Cohen acknowledged he kept Trump apprised of the Trump Tower Moscow project well beyond January 16, during which time Trump said he had no financial relationship with Russia. As Trump made those publish statements, he was arguing the U.S. should be less hostile in its relations with Russia.
CNN legal pundit Jeffrey Toobin was among those noting on air this morning it is no coincidence Cohen made this move after Trump had submitted his written answers under oath to Special Counsel Robert Muellers questions in Muellers probe of Russian election tampering.
[contf]
[contfnew]
Deadline
[contfnewc]
[contfnewc]
