WASHINGTON (AP) – The president’s former personal lawyer claims Donald Trump was told in advance that WikiLeaks planned to release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 White House campaign.
That’s what Michael Cohen is telling the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
In his prepared testimony, Cohen says he was in Trump’s office in 2016 when Trump adviser Roger Stone called.
Cohen says Stone told Trump that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange, who run the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks group, and that there would be a “massive dump” of emails harmful to the Clinton campaign.
Cohen’s allegation would contradict the president’s assertions that he was in the dark on this issue.
It’s not immediately clear what evidence Cohen has to support the allegation or how legally problematic this claim it might be for Trump.
Special counsel Robert Mueller hasn’t suggested that merely being aware of WikiLeaks’ plans is by itself a crime.
Stone has pleaded not guilty to witness tampering and obstruction in Mueller’s investigation.
President Donald Trump’s eldest sons are tweeting their thoughts about Michael Cohen’s public testimony – and they’re ridiculing him as a disgruntled ex-employee out to try and save himself.
Donald Trump Jr. tweets that Cohen’s testimony sounded “like a breakup letter” and that it’s “funny how things change when you’re trying to save your ass.”
For much of Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have called President Donald Trump’s former lawyer a liar.
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and other Republicans say Cohen can’t be trusted for what he says about Trump because Cohen pleaded guilty last year for lying to Congress.
At the hearing, Gosar put up a sign that read “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire” and called Cohen a “pathological liar.”
(Copyright 2019, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
