Michael Cohen says Trump knew ahead of time about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting in which his campaign thought a Russian lawyer would offer dirt on Hillary Clinton
- Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, accused Trump of knowing in advance that his campaign planned to meet with a Russia-linked lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, CNN reported on Thursday.
- Citing sources familiar with Cohen's claims, CNN says Cohen has no evidence that Trump knew about the meeting in advance, but is willing to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller under oath.
- The meeting in question happened in June 2016, when Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. The premise of the meeting was that Veselnitskaya was representing the Russian government's effort to help Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
- Trump has previously denied he knew about the meeting, but took part in efforts to do damage control when the story first emerged last summer.
President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen has accused Trump of knowing in advance about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between members of his campaign that was held on the premise that the lawyer would offer dirt on Hillary Clinton.
CNN and NBC News reported on Thursday night that Cohen has no evidence that Trump had advance knowledge of the meeting, but is willing to testify about it under oath to the special counsel Robert Mueller.
The meeting in question happened in June 2016, when Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower.
The premise of the meeting was that Veselnitskaya was representing the Russian government's effort to help Trump in the presidential election that year.
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.
The July 2017 statement reads:
On Thursday night, the president's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, slapped away Cohen's alleged claims, calling him "an incredible liar" who has "a tremendous motive to lie now."
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.