Lanny Davis on the Rachel Maddow Show announced that Michael Cohen would be going back to the House Intelligence Committee next Wednesday as a result of some “game changing” revelations from his testimony today. It seems that Cohen has provided evidence that Trump, his lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, and members of the Joint Defense Agreement, including Jared and Ivanka’s lawyer Abbe Lowell, not only knew Cohen was going to lie to Congress in 2017 about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiation, but they helped him craft his statement. In particular, they modified Cohen’s original statement to underscore that the deal was over before the Iowa Caucuses, something that, according to Davis, “everyone knew was a lie.”
Here is what Lanny Davis said tonight:
Lanny Davis: This is about lying and obstruction evidence and I think that the White House has not read the description of obstruction of justice or of suborning perjury…
[Regarding Cohen’s 2017 statement] There will be an additional amount of information comparing the first draft that Michael wrote and the reiterations called red-lines that a collective group of lawyers called members of a Joint Defense Agreement, and then the final iteration contained an absolutely knowingly false statement--not only by Michael--that he did no Russian Moscow Tower activity after the Iowa Caucuses.
And, let me just tell you one example. So Donald Trump would have a rally after the Iowa caucuses the campaign begins as we all know, and he’d be at a rally telling everyone: “No Russia, No Discussions, No Collusion, No Russia.” and his rally crowd would cheer and believe him but then within a few minutes he’d be walking out of that rally and he would turn to Michael and he’d say, “So what’s going on in Russia. What’s going on in Moscow?” It was that blatant, and that much is in the public record and there will be more developing next Wednesday at the intelligence committee…
[Trump] gives people the signal in codes what he wants and then it is carried along, and by the time it reached the final draft, the absolute lie that everybody knew was a lie, including Mr. Trump, is that he did nothing after the Iowa caucuses because that’s when the campaign began, and that’s for sure everybody knew that was a lie."
This Joint Defense Agreement begins to look like a Trump RICO tar pit.
To better understand what this is all about, here is the relevant sentence from Cohen’s opening statement from Wednesday’s hearing:
Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”
And, the subsequent testimony:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): You said you lied to Congress about Trump’s negotiations to build his Moscow tower because he’d made it clear to you that he wanted you to lie.
So this is a pretty breathtaking claim, and I just want to get to the facts here. Which specific lawyers reviewed and edited your statement to Congress on the Moscow tower negotiations, and did they make any changes to your statement?
Michael Cohen: There were changes made, additions. Jay Sekulow for one.
Raskin: Were there questions about the timing?
Cohen: There were several changes that were made, including how we were going to handle that message. Which was — the message, of course, being the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive.
Raskin: That was one of the changes?
Cohen: Yes.
...
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.): Who at the White House reviewed your testimony?
Cohen: I don’t know the answer to that. The document was originally created by myself along with my attorney at the time. … There was a joint defense agreement, so the document circulated around. I believe it was also reviewed by Abbe Lowell, who represents Ivanka [Trump] and Jared Kushner.
Sarbanes: Why did you provide the testimony to the White House?
Cohen: It was pursuant to the joint defense agreement that we were all operating under.
Sarbanes: What were the edits that came back substantively?
Cohen: I don’t know, sir. I’d have to take a look at the document.
In response to a later question, Cohen suggested he would be happy to provide his original statement.
…
Sarbanes: Did you have a reaction to why there might not have been, in a sense, a protest to what was going to be false testimony that was going to be provided to the Intelligence Committee?
Cohen: No, sir, because the goal was to stay on message. It’s just limit the relationship whatsoever with Russia. It was short. There’s no Russian contacts. There’s no Russian collusion. There’s no Russian deals. That’s the message. That’s the message that existed well before my need to come and testify.
...
I toed the party line, and I’m now suffering, and I’m going to continue to suffer for a while along with my family, so, yes.
...
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) : Who were the attorneys who edited the document?
“Jay Sekulow,” Cohen replied. “I believe Abbe Lowell, as well.”
link: www.washingtonpost.com/...
Sekulow responded immediately with a kinda sorta denial tweet:
Today’s testimony by Michael Cohen that attorneys for the President edited or changed his statement to Congress to alter the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations is completely false.
On its face this appears to be a refutation of Cohen’s sworn testimony, but upon close examination it is revealed to be a carefully crafted misleading non-denial.
Indeed much has been made of the fact that either Cohen or Sekulow must be lying because their statements differ. A close examination of the actual text reveals that there is not necessarily conflict between the two, although both are intended to leave a different impression.
Of course, any statements made in these matters are subject to severe scrutiny and anyone found to be lying is at enormous personal risk. This goes for both Sekulow and Cohen. If Cohen is found to be lying he risks further incarceration and losses any chance of a reduction in his current sentence. Also, Sekulow has to be very careful at risk of his practice and potential criminal false statements should he be called upon to back up his assertions with a sworn statement to Congress. Plus, this is a simple matter of fact. Cohen’s original statement exists and the revised statement also exists. Whatever changes were made by Sekulow and Lowell are discoverable, so no one has any lasting benefit from lying now. But, misleading… that’s the name of the game for Team Trump.
So, how can these both be true? That’s the question we need to be asking. Let’s look at Cohen’s 2017 testimony:
I assume we will discuss the rejected proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow that was terminated in January of 2016; which occurred before the Iowa caucus and months before the very first primary. This was solely a real estate deal and nothing more. I was doing my job. I would ask that the two-page statement about the Moscow proposal that I sent to the Committee in August be incorporated into and attached to this transcript.
Note that Cohen never explicitly says that anyone “alter[ed] the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations” from his original version. He says is that they “reviewed and edited” the statement. Further he says that they made changes that pertained to how they were going to, “handle that message. Which was — the message, of course, being the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive.”
Again, he does not say that they changed any duration, rather he says that they contributed edits pertaining to how they were going to handle the messaging. If, for instance, Sekulow and Lowell had contributed the phrase, “which occurred before the Iowa caucus and months before the very first primary,” they would be making edits pertaining to messaging without changing any duration.
Of course, both Cohen and Sekulow may have an interest in misleading the public, as both statements do. Cohen may want the public to believe that his 2017 testimony on duration was crafted by Trump’s lawyers. Trump’s lawyers want to generate the impression that they had nothing to do with Cohen’s testimony. It is really somewhat immaterial however, since the facts will eventually come out.
Tonight Lanny Davis seems to confirm that Cohen had the part about January in the original because he does not refute Sekulow’s tweet. Rather, he focuses on the part that's added, "that everyone knew was a lie," about the Iowa caucuses. Here the 'everyone' is Sekulow, Lowell, Trump and probably others in the JDA. This JDA looks more and more like a Trump RICO tar pit.
So Sekulow was not explicitly lying when he says they did not change the duration, but the truth may be much much worse for him, because at least according to Davis they may all be complicit in suborning lying to Congress.
To summarize:
1. Cohen shared his 2017 testimony with Sekulow, Lowell and other members of the Joint Defense Agreement. It would be interesting to find out who else in the JDA reviewed it!
2. His original statement conformed to the Trump messaging that the Trump Moscow Tower deal ended in January 2016. Cohen was being a good soldier.
3. Sekulow and maybe Lowell and others in the JDA edited the statement, because they knew this was what Trump wanted, to emphasize that the negotiations ended before the Iowa Caucuses, before the campaign really got going. This establishes they all had foreknowledge of Cohen’s testimony, and according to Davis, they all knew that this was a lie and were suborning lying to Congress.
