Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer, says Trump knew in advance about a Russian lawyer’s offer to the Trump campaign of dirt on then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, multiple media reports said.
CNN, citing sources with knowledge of the matter, reported that Cohen claims he was one of several people who were present when Donald Trump Jr. informed Trump of the offer. Cohen reportedly says that Trump greenlit the meeting after hearing about it from his son.
Trump Jr. was later one of three top Trump campaign officials, including Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, who met with the Russian lawyer and several other Kremlin-linked individuals at Trump Tower in June 2016.
CNN and NBC News reported that Cohen does not have physical evidence — like a tape recording — to back up his claim but is willing to testify about it under oath to the special counsel Robert Mueller.
Cohen reportedly did not mention this new claim when he testified to two Congressional committees in 2017, according to CNN. Additionally, a person familiar with Cohen’s House Intelligence Committee testimony told CNN that Cohen said nothing at the time about whether or not Trump knew of the 2016 meeting.
Trump has previously said he did not know about the meeting in advance. When the story first emerged last summer, Trump Jr. sought to play down the Trump Tower gathering. He provided a statement about the meeting to the press last summer, which was reportedly dictated by his father .
Cohen is currently at the center of an investigation in the Southern District of New York. The FBI raided his home, office, and hotel room in April, seizing a multitude of documents and recordings pertaining to his own business dealings and his work for Trump.
Cohen has not been charged with a crime, but he is in legal jeopardy, as evidenced by his stated willingness to “put family and country first” and “tell the truth” about Trump.
The claims about Trump’s alleged prior knowledge of the meeting are pertinent to the broader Russia investigation in which Mueller and his prosecutors are trying to make sense of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — and whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to help get Trump elected.
The president continues to deny such claims.