Cohen’s lawyer on Trump Tower meeting: Cohen was ‘present at a discussion with’ Trump and Trump Jr.
Michael Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, on Wednesday claimed Cohen witnessed a discussion between President Trump and Donald Trump Jr. that was apparently related to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer.
Davis, who is a contributor to The Hill, was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” what evidence Cohen has, as he has claimed, that Trump knew in advance about the meeting.
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“At this juncture, I can only say that he was present during a discussion with Jr. and dad,” Davis told CNN. “Beyond that his testimony to the Senate Intelligence and House Intelligence committees was accurate.”
What evidence does Michael Cohen have that the President knew in advance of the controversial 2016 Trump Tower meeting?
“At this juncture, I can only say that [Cohen] was present during a discussion with [Donald Trump Jr.] and [Trump],” Lanny Davis says pic.twitter.com/l6v501rujQ
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) August 22, 2018
Cohen previously told the congressional committees he did not know about the meeting in advance.
However, CNN reported last month that Cohen is prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump had approved the Trump Tower meeting, which Trump officials have acknowledged was meant to gather dirt on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The president has denied that he knew the meeting was taking place at the time and repeated that denial after Cohen made the allegation he did.
“I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr,” he tweeted last month. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam.”
Davis said Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that Cohen is willing to talk to Mueller about the meeting. Davis described the meeting as “the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system.”
Trump Jr., along with then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and current White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the meeting, which took place ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
British music producer Rob Goldstone arranged the meeting and told Trump Jr. in an email ahead of it that a Russian lawyer would offer information that “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”
“If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. replied.
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