Politico | Donald Trump’s inner circle sustains collateral damage in Michael Cohen hearing

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Darren Samuelsohn, Josh Gerstein and Anita Kumar on politico.com on February 27, 2019. In the high-stakes battle between US President Donald Trump and Michael Cohen, some of the people in their immediate orbit are ending up as collateral hits. Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer dropped several names of people in Trump’s inner circle Wednesday during the nationally-televised testimony before the House Oversight Committee, including the president’s adult children and top executives at his namesake company, the Trump Organisation. Cohen also fingered Trump’s first 2016 campaign manager and the legal team surrounding the president. It’s unclear whether any of the people Cohen referenced will face any kind of criminal charges or other legal consequences, though during his testimony he declined to answer several lawmakers’ questions about them because they’re part of ongoing federal investigations. Any conflict between Cohen’s account and what those he mentioned have told investigators could also be fodder for future legal tangles. Many of the individuals the former Trump lawyer cited have now given their own statements to federal prosecutors and in some cases Congressional committees, creating possible legal exposure over any differences. But prosecutors are unlikely to bring any case based on Cohen’s word alone since he admitted to repeatedly lying for Trump, and previously pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. At the very least, Cohen’s comments about the people in Trump’s circle are likely to draw further scrutiny from lawmakers as they continue their investigations into everything from Russian interference in the 2016 election to the president’s business dealings. Here’s a closer look at who’s name came up Wednesday and why: Donald Trump Jnr Trump Jnr was the focus of numerous responses from Cohen, including a direct accusation that Trump’s oldest son had a role in a criminal conspiracy by helping facilitate the payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. “I believe that the top signature is his signature,” Cohen said, fingering Trump Jnr as signing a US$35,000 cheque sent in March 2017 as a partial reimbursement of the US$130,000 Cohen arranged to transfer to Daniels just before the election. The scheme is one of the campaign-finance crimes Cohen admitted to last year, but prosecutors have not charged Trump Jnr with any offence. Cohen’s testimony was also at odds with statements Donald Trump Jnr has made to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project. Trump Jnr told the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 2017 that he was only “peripherally aware” of the effort, but Cohen said Wednesday that Trump Jnr got numerous updates on the effort to build a Trump-branded building in the Russian capital. Cohen said Wednesday he gave “approximately 10” such briefings to Trump Jnr or Ivanka Trump or both, although it wasn’t entirely clear over what time frame. Cohen also said he believes Trump Jnr is the Trump Organisation official identified by prosecutors in court documents only as “Executive-2”. That person allegedly approved at least one of the reimbursement payments. However, the identity of that executive remained in some doubt Wednesday, as The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump Organisation staffer in question is actually the real estate group’s controller, Jeffrey McConney. A lawyer for Trump Jnr and the Trump Organisation, which Trump Jnr currently co-leads with his brother Eric while his father is president, didn’t respond to a request for comment. However, Trump Jnr took a series of shots at Cohen on Twitter as his testimony unfolded. “Cohen also lied under oath about 3 times saying he wasn’t interested in a role in the administration. In truth he actively lobbied anyone that would listen for the Chief of Staff role or anything else. Plenty of reporters know it. He can’t help but perjure himself,” Trump Jnr wrote. Ivanka Trump Cohen testified that, like Trump Jnr, Ivanka Trump was on the receiving end of numerous briefings about the Trump Tower Moscow project. It’s unclear what lines of inquiry the president’s oldest daughter has answered from investigators, but her public responses raise questions of whether she, too, stuck to what Cohen claims was a false “party line” that the project was left for dead early in the 2016 presidential campaign. In an interview earlier this month, Ivanka Trump downplayed the effort expended on the Moscow project, saying she knew “literally almost nothing” about it. “This was not exactly an advanced project,” the Trump daughter told ABC News. “It was really just a non-factor in our minds.” A lawyer for Ivanka Trump did not respond to a request for comment. Eric Trump Cohen said some cheques he received in connection with the Daniels payoff may have been signed by Eric Trump, but the former Trump lawyer didn’t provide any copies of those as he testified Wednesday. While Cohen at one point agreed that there had been a criminal conspiracy, at another juncture, the Trump lawyer said he couldn’t say for sure that Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jnr or Trump Organisation CFO Allen Weisselberg knew the payments were “false and illegal”. “I can’t make that conclusion,” Cohen said. What those men knew or were told about the law may be as important as what they did, because under the federal campaign finance statute, violations are only a crime if the person involved knows they’re breaking the law. Eric Trump and a lawyer for the Trump Organisation did not respond to a request for comment. Allen Weisselberg Cohen mentioned the long-time Trump Organisation chief financial officer more than two dozen times during the hearing, including in conversations about the plan to pay off Daniels. Cohen also said he and Weisselberg spoke further about the strategy in Weisselberg’s office at Trump Tower. Cohen also said Weisselberg and Donald Trump Jnr signed a 2017 cheque reimbursing him for the hush money payments. “Mr Weisselberg for sure (knew) about the entire discussions and negotiations prior to the election,” Cohen told lawmakers. In August, news broke that federal prosecutors in New York granted immunity from prosecution to Weisselberg, who did not respond to a request for comment. Rhona Graff Graff, Trump’s long-standing executive assistant who worked at Trump Tower for three decades, could be contacted to corroborate Cohen’s testimony if she hasn’t already. Specifically, Cohen said she may know if Trump knew that hacked Democratic emails were going to be released during the 2016 campaign. “Her office was directly next to his and she's involved in a lot that went on,” Cohen told members of Congress. Graff, who has been described as Trump’s gatekeeper, has continued to work for Trump since he was elected president. Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Roger Stone Cohen’s testimony may have added to the troubles for Stone, the long-time Trump associate who has already been indicted for lying to Congress and obstructing lawmakers’ Russia probe. In his opening statement, Cohen described a conversation he overheard in Trump’s office in Trump Tower in July 2016, when Stone was put on speakerphone to report back what he’d just discussed with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an incoming “massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign”. Stone has long denied having direct communications with Assange, and on Wednesday he even risked violating a federal judge’s gag order that was placed on him restricting his commentary about the Russia probe to say in an email to POLITICO that Cohen’s testimony was “not true”. Corey Lewandowski Cohen said he spoke to Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s first campaign manager for more than a year, early in the campaign about what dates Trump could possibly travel to Russia to push for the construction of a Trump Tower in that country. The trip never happened because Cohen could not acquire the property in Russia. Lewandowski was fired but remains an outside adviser to Trump and has co-written two books on Trump. He and his lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment but Lewandowski has previously called Cohen a “rat”. Jay Sekulow Cohen dragged his replacement as Trump’s personal lawyer into the mix in an attempt to explain how he came to be charged for giving false statements to the House Intelligence Committee about an aborted Trump Tower project in Moscow. Cohen specifically mentioned that Sekulow was one of the lawyers who in 2017 reviewed his prepared testimony and made changes to it. But when asked again about the process by a different member of Congress, Cohen responded that he didn’t know which lawyers at the White House reviewed his statement. Cohen added that he and his first lawyer, Stephen Ryan, originally wrote the testimony and then it had circulated among several lawyers, including with Abbe Lowell, the lawyer to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner who was involved in a joint defence agreement. In a statement to POLITICO, Sekulow rejected Cohen’s assertion that he or any other lawyers for Trump altered the at-issue statement. “Today’s testimony by Michael Cohen that lawyers for the president edited or changed his statement to Congress to alter the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations is completely false,” Sekulow said. Rudy Giuliani Cohen made repeated claims about the former New York mayor, who joined the president’s personal legal team last May. The former Trump lawyer accused Giuliani of levelling attacks on him that he thought were threats to his safety and possible witness intimidation. Cohen also took issue with Giuliani for drawing attention to potential ties between the business dealings of Cohen’s father-in-law and the Russian mafia. Pushing back on his Republican Party critics who questioned why he was violating lawyer-client privilege by releasing audio tapes of his conversations with Trump, Cohen also insisted that Giuliani was first to waive the confidentiality agreement by discussing the tapes. And he noted that Giuliani’s appearance on Fox News last spring included an inaccurate description of how Trump reimbursed Cohen for the hush money payments. In a text message, Giuliani disputed several of Cohen’s claims. He said he didn’t waive the privilege and only commented about the tape after it was leaked “by him or special counsel” Mueller’s office. He also pushed back on Cohen’s complaint that Giuliani’s remarks about his father-in-law were intended to be a threat. “All I did is repeat the 30 or so media reports that he and some members of his family were involved with organised crime. The threat, if any, comes from them if true,” Giuliani wrote. Jeffrey Getzel Jeffrey Getzel, a Long Island, New York accountant, was one of several figures who are far from household names but suddenly found themselves under fire at Wednesday’s hearing. When Cohen came under attack from Republicans over the five counts of tax fraud he’s admitted to, the former Trump lawyer at one point took a shot at his former accountant. “He's almost directing me in an earlier memo to commit fraud, but putting all of that aside with Jeff Getzel, I pled guilty and I made my mistake,” Cohen declared. “I've said 100 times now - I'm not so sure why this singular attack on my taxes, if you want to look at them, I'm more than happy to show them to you.” Press accounts last summer said Getzel was subpoenaed before a grand jury in Manhattan to testify about Cohen’s finances. Republican Party lawmakers repeatedly accused Cohen Wednesday of trying to blame others for his crimes, including by pointing the finger at Getzel. A woman who answered the phone at Getzel’s office Wednesday interrupted before a reporter could get out a question about the accountant’s mention at the hearing. “No comment,” the woman said, before hanging up. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/27/michael-cohen-hearing-trump-circle-1194520

.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Politico | Donald Trump’s inner circle sustains collateral damage in Michael Cohen hearing

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} The president’s former lawyer mentioned some of Trump’s children and close business associates in his House testimony

Politico | Donald Trump’s inner circle sustains collateral damage in Michael Cohen hearing

The president’s former lawyer mentioned some of Trump’s children and close business associates in his House testimony