Michael Cohen is reportedly prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that then-candidate Donald Trump knew and approved the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and his campaign staffers.
Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, alleged that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, was the one who informed him that the meeting would take place.
During the meeting, the Russians were expected to dish out dirt on Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
At the meeting, Don Jr was joined by his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman at the time.
Michael Cohen (left) has claimed that then-candidate Donald Trump approved the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and his campaign staffers
There were also four Russians in the room, including Natalia Veselnitskaya who reportedly has Kremlin ties, a businessman who worked for an oligarch and a lobbyist with old KGB connections.
According to CNN, sources claim that Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, but he doesn’t have evidence, such as audio recordings, to corroborate his claim.
‘He’s certainly a source that is not credible,’ Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Chris Cuomo on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time.
For months, the president’s legal team, the White House press secretary and others in Trump’s orbit said he did not dictate or help draft a June 2017 statement trying to explain the Trump Tower meeting between his eldest son and a Russian lawyer.
Turns out, that wasn’t true.
In a January letter to Mueller, Trump’s lawyers said the president ‘dictated a short but accurate response’ to the first report that his son, Don Jr, and others had met with the Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential election.
The New York Times revealed the existence of the letter last month.
The Trump Tower meeting – and the White House’s initial response to the first reports of the meeting – has been a key moment in Mueller’s investigation into whether anyone on the campaign colluded with Russia and whether Trump obstructed justice.
In the initial written statement from Don Jr on June 8, 2017, he said the Trump Tower gathering was a ‘short introductory meeting’ focused on a disbanded program that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children.
Moscow ended the adoptions in response to Magnitsky Act sanctions created in response to alleged human rights violations in Russia.
While the Magnitsky Act was discussed, it was later revealed that the meeting was held on the promise of damaging information about Clinton.
Don Jr did not mention the promise of dirt on Clinton until a statement the next day.