The last time that Cohen was before the House intelligence panel, he lied about those talks - to committees in both the House and Senate.
"I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia," Cohen said Wednesday. "I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false – our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign."
In his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Cohen did say that lawyers for the President reviewed that false testimony, raising eyebrows among Democrats.
Cohen says his testimony on Trump Tower Moscow was changed by the president's lawyer, Jay Sekulow pic.twitter.com/jGJI6Lulro
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 27, 2019
Cohen though specifically made clear that he was not ordered to lie to Congress, but rather he told lawmakers that understood what he was supposed to say, in order to 'toe the party line.'
"Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates," Cohen said, describing how the President would routinely say out loud to Cohen that he had no business in Russia, even though Cohen was briefing him on his business efforts in Russia.
"Mr Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress - that's not how he operates"
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 27, 2019
Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen says the US president "made it clear" he wanted him to lie over Moscow Tower project
Latest: https://t.co/3J9nebR2wm pic.twitter.com/7A7rUKLeV8
Cohen is also expected to be questioned Thursday about what the President knew about Wikileaks, and that group's efforts to release hacked emails damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democrats.
During Cohen's testimony, Wikileaks mocked assertions by Cohen that the President had been tipped off to email dumps by Roger Stone.
"WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has never had a telephone call with Roger Stone," the group wrote on Twitter.
Today Cohen provided the American public with a first-hand account of serious misconduct by Trump & those around him.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 28, 2019
Tomorrow we‘ll examine in depth many of those topics including Trump Tower Moscow, Roger Stone/Wikileaks and any WH role in Cohen’s false statements to Congress.
One of the more interesting item's from Cohen's testimony was his refusal to answer a series of different questions from lawmakers about issues involving the President, raising the distinct issue that Mr. Trump is still under investigation by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
"I'd rather not say," Cohen said at one point when asked if an investigation of the President, his son Donald Trump Jr., and a top official of the Trump Organization was ongoing.
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