Democrats vow to investigate report Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress
Mueller’s investigators learned Trump told his former fixer to lie to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow project, BuzzFeed reports
Democrats have vowed to investigate a report that Donald Trump personally directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about an effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, which could leave the president open to accusations of suborning perjury and obstruction of justice.
Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress about the Moscow project. He told the House and Senate intelligence committees that the project was scrapped by January 2016, but Cohen has now said planning actually continued through June, while Trump was a candidate for president.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the US 2016 election and ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Cohen has told Mueller that Trump personally instructed him to lie by claiming the negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did, BuzzFeed reported on Thursday, citing two federal law enforcement sources.
It is the first known allegation that Trump told a subordinate to lie about his dealings with Russia.
“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,” said the California representative Adam Schiff, chair of the House intelligence committee. “We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true.”
Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary committee tweeted: “We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction. Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committee’s job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work.”
Mueller’s investigators learned that Trump told Cohen to lie through interviews with multiple witnesses who worked for the Trump Organization and internal company emails, texts and documents, according to BuzzFeed. Cohen then confirmed to investigators that his former boss told him to lie.
In a response on Twitter on Friday, Trump did not deny the allegations in the report, but instead accused Cohen of “lying to reduce his jail time”.
Trump’s current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, also did not deny the report, and instead cast doubt over Cohen’s credibility.
“If you believe Cohen I can get you a good all-cash deal on the Brooklyn Bridge,” Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal.
The sources told BuzzFeed that Trump also supported a plan, suggested by Cohen, that he travel to Russia during the presidential campaign and meet with President Vladimir Putin in order to lock down a deal to build the tower.
“Make it happen,” Trump reportedly told Cohen. The meeting with Putin never took place. But the two law enforcement sources told BuzzFeed that Trump met Cohen face to face at least 10 times during the campaign to talk about the Moscow tower project.
The Guardian has not independently verified the report.
“I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but I’m pretty sure if this story is true it’s – I’m going to be careful with my words here – something that Congress must investigate thoroughly,” Senator Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, said on Twitter.
Representative Ted Lieu of California said if the report is true, Trump may have committed “so many felonies” and it could be grounds for impeachment.
“This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony. 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 said on Twitter.
“Based on the Buzzfeed report and numerous other articles showing @realDonaldTrump committed Obstruction of Justice and other possible felonies, it is time for the House Judiciary Committee to start holding hearings to establish a record of whether @POTUS committed high crimes.”
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen paid a technology company to rig early online polls in Trump’s favor, including a CNBC poll identifying the country’s top business leaders and a Drudge Report poll on potential Republican presidential candidates.
“What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump,” Cohen said in a tweet. “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”
