CNN:
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.
Cohen’s claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.
Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians’ offer by Trump Jr. By Cohen’s account, Trump approved going ahead with the meeting with the Russians, according to sources.
Cohen says that he has no evidence to present other than his word.
Rudy Giuliani says that Cohen has lied all his life.
“He has lied all his life… a person who is found to be an incredible liar, he’s got a tremendous motive to lie now… I don’t think anyone believes that.” Rudy Giuliani dismisses report Michael Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting https://t.co/xd4PFYYpcQ pic.twitter.com/9gxjNGWLRA
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) July 27, 2018
We report, you decide.
Aussiesmurf
Does Rudy have the smidgen of self-awareness to comprehend that he will be in Michael Cohen’s shoes inside of six months?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Yeah. Two born liars, the president and his former lawyer. Only if one of them is willing to testify under oath and the other isn’t, well, I can only speak for myself, but I lean toward believing the guy under oath.
Cheryl Rofer
I can almost feel sorry for someone as desperate as Michael Cohen.
Aleta
Our airwaves are infested with a shrewdness of liars.
Mnemosyne
@Aussiesmurf:
No.
SATSQ.
lamh36
Reposting some of my comments from previous thread on this topic.
Was just watching Maddow as NBC News confirmed the reporting from their sources.
Rachel first asked one thing that lead to some good points.why would Micheal Cohen give that info to reporter if they wanted to use it for leverage w/Mueller.
Per Lanny: “I cannot comment. And I have to wonder why the Trump people would put that out. It was not from us”
Another point from Rachel, does this public leaking of it in effect take a card out of the deck that Cohen may have been able to use to “negotiate” with the prosecutors?
Which in itself helps Chump, esp if it was leaked before being given to prosecutors as a bargaining chip
Rachel’s guest, Chuck Rosenberg Former US ATTY says if Chump co leaked it, he doesn’t think it lessens Cohen’s value as a witness, esp if Cohen has evidence more than just leaked words.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Is your client in the habit of hiring serial liars to represent him? By the way Rudi, how’s Judi these days? Kids talking to you? Waddaya hear from Bernie Kerik?
Mary G
Rudy and Cuomo are awfully buddy-buddy for a journalist and a subject. It’s all yucks, like it’s funny. It’s not.
lamh36
I dont’ trust NONE of these folks.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: lots of speculation that team trump leaked this to diminish his value as a witness. Chuck Rosenberg (ex-FBI and Justice mandarin whom I will hire if I’m ever in big legal trouble) says this is bad strategy, cause Mueller would want him as a witness even if his story has already been told. Strikes me as plausible that 1) trump thinks he can bluff his way through this no matter what Cohen says and 2) trump and Rudi would do this because it’s bullying and spiteful and vindictive and short-sighted.
and, I keep forgetting to say it because it’s so fucking obvious, of fucking course The Beast knew. Poor little Large Slabhead probably doesn’t pick out his ties in the morning without wondering if Big Daddy approves, and that fact that The Son He Wishes He’d Had was sent to keep an eye on Fredo just kind of seals the deal.
germy
After Rudy said “Michael Cohen has lied all his life”
Jake Tapper asked the musical question: “On behalf of who?”
Marcopolo
Sounds legit
Ordering more popcorn even as I type this
Cheryl Rofer
People on Twitter are talking about the Prisoners’ Dilemma political science paradigm. I think we are edging into Cretan Liar territory.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Boom. Good on Tapper.
didn’t one of the Russian participants leak a few weeks back that Jared was visibly disappointed when his guests didn’t bring the dirt with them?
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is it just me, or does it seem to always be the case that these “leaks” happen jus thwen Guiliani i gonna be on some net (either Cuomo or Faux News) for an interview?
Adam L Silverman
Obligatory!
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
Giuliani is right about Cohen’s lying and anything he testifies to is going to take corroboration to be believable given the kind of impeachment cross exam he will be subject too. I am not sure Cohen can be honest enough to get through that. Mueller won’t rely on this alone, but it may pry out some other evidence and may move the public discourse. Of course we may be in the first phases of Cohen’s public attack defense so more allegations could be on the horizon.
germy
“Maybe he gets run over by a truck.”
Cheryl Rofer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s a reasonable theory. I’ve kind of given up trying to figure out the betrayals and leaks because of the crazy factor and general lying. It makes my head hurt.
Adam L Silverman
@Aussiesmurf: He doesn’t even have logic. This explanation makes no sense. I spoke to everyone at that meeting and their was no meeting. Wha?????
Major Major Major Major
Well isn’t that special.
lamh36
Just in time to give Faux news something to cover and get out to the deplorables…other than the Cohen news.
HumboldtBlue
Where’s Dana Loesch?
Funny, the NRA are Rooskie dupes.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: This is where the counterintelligence task force that Special Counsel Mueller inherited comes in to play. Not only will he have that number, but if anyone in that meeting that Cohen is referencing were subject to a FISA warrant, then he’ll have the complete SIGINT package.
Jeffro
Pass.
The.
Popcorn.
Let’s be honest here, armchair pundits: we all predicted that this is what it would look like at the beginning of the end .
(pats self, multiple other BJ regs on back)
SFAW
@Cheryl Rofer:
Well, there are certainly enough lying cretins in the maladministration to fill whatever lying needs they have. Although I think of Lying Littledick as a moron, not a cretin — but I would be willing to revise.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That was Jr.
West of the Rockies
Any chance that the IC itself leaked the info in response to Jim Jordan and Co. trying to introduce articles of impeachment on Rosenstein?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@lamh36: I’m sure that the 120 y/o parents of these soldiers that were asking Trump to do something about these soldiers will feel closure.
Tim C.
Honestly, it comes back the phrase I lifted from someone off this blog months ago.
Trump’s team needs to be playing chess and they choose to play hungry hungry hippos.
SFAW
@Marcopolo:
Leave some for the rest of us, OK?
Amir Khalid
@Aussiesmurf:
Self-awareness tends not to be a big thing for Rudy G, or indeed for Trumpistas going all the way up to The Man Himself.
West of the Rockies
@West of the Rockies: (In order to make clearer Trump’s involvement with Russians…)
SiubhanDuinne
TICK FUCKING TOCK,
FUCKING MOFOS
??⏱⏰??⏱⏰??⏱⏰
eric
This info has no value to Mueller. None. Zero. The only way this info has value is if it comes with a side of admissible corroborative evidence. Mueller would never even ask Cohen this question on the stand. yawn.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: And hopefully this is accurate. Far too often when they’ve gotten remains back in the past, once they’ve done the actual forensics, they’ve turned out to have been animal remains, human remains from unknown and unidentified North Koreans, or some combination of the two.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
And Trump will no doubt be at the airbase when the planes land to comfort the grieving parents as they receive their sons’ remains.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MomSense
Na na na na
Na na na na
Hey hey hey
Goodbye
Adam L Silverman
@HumboldtBlue: She’s polishing her clenched fist of truth.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: No. Not for that. Especially since the AG backed Rosenstein publicly this morning and Ryan basically told Meadows and Jordan to forget it. So the impeachment bill was DOA with Ryan and he controls the House schedule.
Adam L Silverman
@Tim C.: Provided you’re quoting from one of my posts, I actually I wrote that they think they’re playing chess and they’re really playing chutes and ladders. Badly.
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks, A!
Uncle Cosmo
@SiubhanDuinne: IMHO we badly need t-shirts that say that in the 6 official languages of the UN. (E.g., French: Ticque tocque, connards!) Especially in Russian.
rk
And he will also tell the grieving parents about his huge electoral college win and the crowd size on his inauguration. After that he will whine about the fake news media.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: You’re welcome.
SiubhanDuinne
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
LOL
JWL
I would advise Cohen: don’t tell me, schmuck, tell Mueller Inc. To quote Tuco: “When you’re going to shoot, shoot- don’t talk”….. and to forget rallying public opinion to his side. That he apparently dreams that impossible dream embarrasses all concerned.
SiubhanDuinne
@Uncle Cosmo:
I couldn’t design it, but I would buy it!
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
You all are hilarious ? ?
Gravenstone
The USS Trumptanic has taken a couple of hits below the waterline. Let’s see how good their damage control teams are.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
“And don’t quote me on this.”
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s a lot of clocks. Must be a bitch when DST switches.
Steeplejack
@Tim C., @Adam L Silverman:
@PopeHat in a tweet shared by Cheryl Rofer in April.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: This is approaching Soviet level of double speak. “I spoke to the protestors in Red Square who tell that there were no protests in Red Square, and absolutely no protestors were shot because they weren’t there!”
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: You said it so well!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s not an obvious casting choice, but Danny DeVito could probably perform a great interpretation of trump, it would be interesting, at any rate. So could Bette Midler
Ken
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Now, now, Trump’s lawyers have explained that several times. He can’t testify under oath because he’ll commit perjury.
(They call it a “perjury trap”, but that’s just a different way of saying “if he’s put on the stand, he will lie.”)
gwangung
@Gravenstone: “Teams”? Heh he he heh heh.
Ken
@lamh36:
The working assumption on Balloon Juice is that Mueller knows anything the NSA knows, but has to find some other source of evidence.
The other working assumption is that if Mueller subpoenas someone and asks a question, it’s because he already knows the answer.
Jaker
Yes…Cohen lied because that’s what his job for Trump entailed. He lied for Trump because he has/had to, as the rest of the clique have to including Giuliani. John Dean who was the Cohen of Watergate done the same as Cohen, he broke ranks with Nixon went to the special investigators of the day & spilled the beans for Nixon’s downfall. Also, like tonight’s big news,
Dean was in a newspaper headline like Cohen is tonight about a meeting with Prosecutor to discuss revelations about what he knew, but it was a leak that Dean knew nothing about. It must have been an insider who leaked that back then that didn’t like Nixon. But the story got Dean thinking to do the right thing, jump ship & work for the investigative side. The reporter’s of that story back then were Bob Woodword & Carl Bernstein of Washington Post of which “President’s Men” film was based on. Carl now is a pundit for CNN & is doing a great job.
One last thing, I saw Giuliani’s act tonight on Cuomo it was terrible stuff. He better not give up the day job even though he’s a jack-ass at that as well. He, Trump, Trump Junior, Manafort, Conway, Hicks, Ivanka, Kushner, etc, etc. etc, will have no hope against Mueller & team. The might as well walk into a police station tonight & present themselves for arrest. For their fate is already written in the stars along with the true TRUTH & their multitude of “LIES”!
Ken
@Gravenstone:
All sixteen of the fifty-passenger lifeboats set sail within ten minutes, each carrying one member of the damage-control team with a stack of freshly-printed resumes.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman: @Miss Bianca: I think Rudy’s trying to show loyalty to Trump by repeating all his explanations for the meeting.
There was never any meeting; there was a meeting but no one from the campaign was there; there were some people from the campaign but they weren’t anyone important; it was one of the campaign managers but not anyone really close to Trump; it was Don Junior but Trump didn’t know about it.
(I may have missed one or ten.)
Jaker
Was the Korean story staged to distract from the MAIN story. That’s one of Putin’s tricks over the years he’ll create a story to numb another story. Like when apartments were blown up in Moscow & two other cities by the FSB. Putin blamed Chechen terrorists so as to take the peoples minds of the main story of the day which was corruption & privatization by the Oligarchs & other cronies of Putin & even Yeltsin.
So people minds diverted to the terrorists & how to get revenge. Putin knowing it was (FSB) terrorists helping him went to war against Chechnya. That was problem solved, until the next one. There were many more to come.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jaker: I think that’s very likely. But Robert Mueller has an information cycle of his own that does not depend on the news cycle.
mike in dc
Cohen worked with Trump long enough to be able to testify reliably as to “pattern and practice” of how things worked between Trump and his sons, for example. I don’t know what to think of this specific leak, though.
Yutsano
@Jaker:
You almost had me until then…
sukabi
@?BillinGlendaleCA: more than likely the bones will be the remains of the last barbecue Kim Jung Un threw.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Damage control, we don’t need no stinking damage control!
I do believe that their damage control consists of opening all the sea valves because they have no idea what they do but they must be important because the signs all say do not open.