A spokesperson for special counsel Robert Mueller’s office released a statement Friday disputing a BuzzFeed Report which alleged President Donald Trump directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to make false statements to Congress regarding a proposed real estate deal in Russia.
“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,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn pic.twitter.com/GWWfGtyhaE
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 19, 2019
BuzzFeed, citing two unidentified law enforcement officials, alleged in a Thursday evening report that President Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that he regularly briefed the president and his family on the Trump Tower project in Moscow. BuzzFeed claimed Cohen told Mueller that President Trump personally instructed him to lie about the timing of the project in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.
Further, BuzzFeed said Mueller’s investigators learned about President Trump’s directive “through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.” The report says Cohen then acknowledged Trump’s instructions when he was interviewed by the Mueller team.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a statement Friday that “any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the allegation “absolutely ridiculous.”
The report comes as House Democrats have promised a thorough look into Trump’s ties to Russia, and as special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign.
Giuliani noted that Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying and quoted federal prosecutors in New York who chastised him for a “pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time.” Mueller’s team, however, has called him a credible witness.
“Today’s claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohen’s malice and desperation,” Giuliani said.
Lanny Davis, a Cohen adviser, declined to comment. On Friday, as photos surfaced of Cohen wearing a hospital ID bracelet and cradling a pillow with his right arm in a sling, Davis said Cohen had undergone minor shoulder surgery.
Though Republicans stayed mostly silent, two Democratic committee chairmen in the House said they will open inquiries.
Reacting to the report, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) pledged “we will do what’s necessary to find out” if the report was true. He said the allegation that President Trump directed Cohen to lie in his 2017 testimony “in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date.”
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. We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true. https://t.co/GljBAFqOjh
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 18, 2019
Calling the allegations a “counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude,” Schiff said his committee had already been working to secure witness testimony and documents related to the Moscow deal.
Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress to cover up that he was negotiating the Trump Tower project on Trump’s behalf during the heat of his presidential campaign. The charge was brought by Mueller and was the result of Cohen’s cooperation with that probe.
He admitted that he lied when he told lawmakers he had never agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow project and when he said that he’d decided by the end of January 2016 that the “proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further.”
This story is developing. Check Breitbart News for more updates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/vmH6TFLe0KM/