By Canadian Press

Cohen cops to lying to Congress as Mueller’s Russia probe gathers steam

Nov 29, 2018 | 2:26 PM

WASHINGTON — The slow-motion suspense of Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia sped up suddenly Thursday as Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, admitted to a New York judge he lied to congressional investigators last year about discussions surrounding an aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. 

The surprise pivot, which the president promptly shrugged off as a last-ditch bid for a reduced sentence on Cohen’s unrelated convictions for tax evasion and bank fraud, came just days after Trump submitted written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller.

In a statement in court, Cohen described how his role as a lawyer and fixer for Trump bridged the former chief executive’s transformation from Manhattan real-estate mogul to presidential candidate in 2016, and how he followed his boss’s script of “repeated disavowals” of ties to Russia.

And he described telling two congressional intelligence committees that the discussions about Trump possibly building one of his trademark skyscrapers in Moscow had come to a halt by January 2016, when the presidential campaign was ramping up in advance of the Iowa caucuses.

“That description was false, I knew at the time, in that I had asserted that all efforts concerning the project had ceased in January of 2016 when, in fact, they had continued through June of 2016,” Cohen said.

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He also admitted he had “extensive communications” with Trump — referred to throughout the statement as “Individual One” — about the project, rather than the “limited” ones he told Congress about, and that the pair did in fact discuss the issue of travelling to Russia, contrary to what he told the committees.  

“I made these misstatements to be consistent with Individual One’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual One.”

Trump, unsolicited, tore a strip off his former lawyer, accusing him of seeking to mitigate the damage from an earlier unrelated guilty plea on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and violating campaign finance laws.

“He was convicted of various things unrelated to us, he was given a fairly long jail sentence, and he’s a weak person,” Trump said before embarking on a trip to Argentina for Friday’s G20 meetings.

“Unlike other people that you watch, he’s a weak person and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence. He’s lying about a project that everybody knew about.”

Trump went on to sound all but certain that once in Argentina, he would sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk about the Russian navy’s brazen confrontation with Ukraine on the Sea of Azov, only to abruptly reverse course minutes later after getting on board Air Force One.

“I think it’s a very good time to have the meeting,” he said on the ground. “I’m getting a full report on the plane as to what happened … and that will determine what I’m going to be doing.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the final decision was made in consultation with national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Kremlin said it had not been formally notified of the decision, which came hours after Moscow said the meeting was on track.

Cohen’s admission comes just one week after Trump and his lawyers provided written answers to questions posed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is at the helm of a sweeping investigation of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia and that country’s role, if any, in swaying the 2016 presidential election.

It also follows Monday’s decision by Mueller to call off his team’s co-operation agreement with Paul Manafort, who has also pleaded guilty to a number of financial charges, upon learning that Trump’s former campaign chief had lied about “a variety of subject matters” after agreeing to work with the special counsel.

All of it suggests Mueller is close to showing his cards, said Capri Cafaro, executive in residence at American University’s School of Public Affairs.

“Something is going on,” said Cafaro, a former Democratic minority leader in the Ohio state senate.

“We’re seeing a lot of developments come out in succession … obviously, progress seems to be being made, because we’re seeing actions being taken in the public sphere, like with Manafort and now with Cohen.”  

Thursday’s hearing reinforces the narrative — first borne of Cohen’s admission earlier this year that he made hush-money payments during the campaign on Trump’s behalf —  that the president’s former lawyer has become one of his biggest legal liabilities.

“We had a position to possibly do a deal to build a building of some kind in Moscow. I decided not to do it … I was focused on running for president,” Trump said. “There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning.”

Mueller’s final report could come sooner rather than later if the special counsel is at all concerned about being accused of having a political agenda, said Cafaro — releasing it in the midst of a newly sworn-in Democratic majority in the House of Representatives could provide the White House with easy talking points.

“It may be likely that Mueller provides this information prior to the end of this year in order to circumvent any potential optics that it may be political,” she said.

“Maybe Mueller will try to release this prior to the new Congress being sworn in just simply to make sure people don’t think he’s somehow placing any political calculus and co-ordinating the fact that the House is coming in.”  

Cohen is to be sentenced Dec. 12.

— With files from The Associated Press

— Follow James McCarten on Twitter @CdnPressStyle

James McCarten, The Canadian Press