Trump’s counsel to Michael Cohen was ‘Tell the truth’: Giuliani slams Buzzfeed report

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, said the president’s only counsel to Michael Cohen in regards to his congressional testimony was ‘tell the truth.’

Giuliani went on the Sunday morning public affairs show to slam a bombshell Buzzfeed report that claimed Trump ordered his then-personal attorney to lie to Congress about the extent of his involvement in the Moscow Trump Tower deal.

The former New York City mayor said he was ‘100 percent’ confident that Trump never asked Cohen to lie.  

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, said the president’s only counsel to Michael Cohen in regards to his congressional testimony was ‘tell the truth.’

Giuliani slammed Buzzfeed for its report President Trump ordered Cohen to lie

Giuliani slammed Buzzfeed for its report President Trump ordered Cohen to lie

‘Are you 100 percent confident that the president never once asked Michael Cohen to do anything but tell the truth to Congress?,’ NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Giuliani during his appearance on ‘Meet the Press.’ 

‘100 percent certain of that,’ Giuliani replied.

‘To answer your question, categorically, I can tell you his counsel to Michael Cohen throughout that entire period was, ‘Tell the truth.’ We thought he was telling the truth. I still believe he may have been telling the truth when he testified before Congress. But in any event, his lawyers thought that, our lawyers thought that and the president thought that at the time,’ he added.

He made the same claim on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’  

‘As far as I know, President Trump did not have discussions with him. Certainly no discussions with him in which he told him or counseled him to lie. If he had any discussions with him, they’d be about the version of the events that Michael Cohen gave them which they all believe was true,’ he told CNN. 

CNN’s Jake Tapper challenged Giuliani about Trump discussing Cohen’s testimony with him.

It’s ‘perfectly normal,’ Giuliani said in response. 

‘So what if he talked to him,’ he added.

But Giuliani also conceded conversations between Trump and Cohen about a Trump Tower Moscow happened through the 2016 election, which is a longer time period that originally claimed by the Trump team.

‘It’s our understanding that it, that they went on throughout 2016, not a lot of them, but there were conversations, can’t be sure of the exact date, but the president can remember having conversations with him about it,’ he said on ‘Meet the Press.’

‘Throughout 2016,’ Todd clarified.   

‘Yeah. Probably up to, could be up to as far as October, November. Our answers cover until the election,’ Giuliani responded. ‘So anytime during that period they could have talked about it, but the president’s recollection of it is the thing had petered out quite a bit. They sent a letter of intent in. They didn’t even know where to send it, they knew so little about it. They finally got it straightened out and then they abandoned the project. And that’s about as much as he can remember of it because remember, 2015, 2016, he’s running against 16 people for president of the United States. And I know that, I was with him like for five months. All his concentration was 100% on running for president.’ 

Cohen, in November of last year, admitted he lied to Congress about how long conversations took place about building a Trump Tower Moscow. He previously said talks about the Moscow project ended in January 2016 but it was later revealed the conversations went up through at least June 2016, at which point Trump had locked up the GOP nomination. 

Buzzfeed’s report claims Trump ‘ordered’ Cohen to lie about the timeline. 

‘Two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie – by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did – in order to obscure Trump’s involvement,’ the bombshell story claimed. 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, which has been tight-lipped about its investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow, issued an extraordinary statement denying the bombshell report.

‘BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,’ Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said. 

Mueller’s team rarely issues statements in response to news stories. 

Giuliani praised Mueller’s office for releasing a rare statement refuting the Buzzfeed story. 

‘To their credit, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel’s Office said that the story was inaccurate. And the inaccuracy is that there’s no evidence that the president told him to lie,’ Giuliani said on NBC.

The former New York City mayor also went on the attack against the news outlet and said Buzzfeed should be sued. He also cautioned the media to be careful in its reporting on the special counsel’s probe.

‘They should be sued. They should be under investigation,’ he told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday.

‘You’ve got a hysteria in the media that interprets everything against Donald Trump,’ he added. ‘You all should be careful.’

‘They bought a totally phony story,’ he said of Buzzfeed.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office made the extraordinary move of issuing a statement refuting Buzzfeed's story

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office made the extraordinary move of issuing a statement refuting Buzzfeed’s story

Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, pled guilty to lying to Congress last year about the timeline involving talks of a Trump Tower Moscow

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, pled guilty to lying to Congress last year about the timeline involving talks of a Trump Tower Moscow

‘They went with it because they are the same ones who published the Steele dossier when no one else would do it,’ Giuliani added.

During the 2016 election, Buzzfeed published the unverified dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele, that claimed Moscow had blackmail material on Trump.

Trump has repeatedly denied this. 

The unverified ‘Steele’ dossier was compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS, which was the firm hired to conduct opposition research through a law firm that had done work for The Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton.

It was the dossier that claimed the Russians had information on Trump that could be used to blackmail him, including an allegation – which Trump has denied – that he hired ‘a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him’ when he was in Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. 

Other media outlets had the dossier but held off on publishing due to their inability to verify its authenticity.  

The president and the White House slammed Buzzfeed for its report.

Trump called it a ‘disgrace.’

‘I think that the BuzzFeed piece was a disgrace to our country. It was a disgrace to journalism, and I think also that the coverage by the mainstream media was disgraceful, and I think it’s going to take a long time for the mainstream media to recover its credibility,’ the president said Saturday. ‘It’s lost tremendous credibility. And believe me, that hurts me when I see that.’ 

Buzzfeed also reported Thursday night that the president and his oldest children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular updates about the development, even as Trump repeatedly claimed he had no business in Russia. 

The report claims Trump also wanted to visit Russia during his presidential campaign to personally meet with Vladimir Putin and launch talks about building the tower, which he hoped could make him $300 million in profits.   

‘Make it happen,’ the unnamed sources claim Trump told Cohen about the meeting.  

Buzzfeed’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith tweeted Friday after the release of the special counsel’s statement: ‘In response to the statement tonight from the Special Counsel’s spokesman: We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he’s disputing.’

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in November, admitting he didn’t tell the truth about the Moscow real estate deal’s timeline. He testified that the project he pursued on Trump’s behalf was abandoned by the time of the Iowa Caucuses in January 2016; that would be consistent with Trump’s ‘political messaging.’

Special Counsel Robert Mueller later filed documents revealing Cohen said he discussed the proposal with Trump on multiple occasions and with members of the president’s family, later in the year – even after Trump became the Republican nominee for president.   

Cohen said he lied out of loyalty to Trump. 

‘I made these misstatements to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual 1,’ Cohen said at his plea hearing late last year.

‘Individual 1’ is Mueller’s name for Trump in the investigation. 

Cohen, who sources said was put in charge of the project, also acknowledged he considered traveling to Moscow to discuss the project. 

Not long after the Buzzfeed report was published, a chorus of Democrats called for a congressional investigation. 

‘This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony,’ wrote California Rep Ted Lieu. ‘I’ve lost count now how many times @realDonaldTrump has engaged in Obstruction of Justice.’ 

‘Oh, fyi the first Article of Impeachment for Richard Nixon was Obstruction of Justice,’ he added. 

‘If the @Buzzfeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached,’ declared Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said they will ‘do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true’. 

‘The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date,’ he tweeted.  

 



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