Trump denies knowing anything about 2016 meeting that included Don Jr., Jared and infamous Russian lawyer as he claims Michael Cohen is ‘trying to make up stories’ to hurt him
Infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Kremlin-linked lawyer, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others is back in the news
CNN reported based on anonymous sources that Michael Cohen is prepared to tell Robert Mueller that Donald Trump approved the meeting in advance
Trump furiously denied that on Friday, casting Cohen as a liar and a turncoat
President also blasted Mueller over reports that he’s using tweets to form the basis of an obstruction of justice charge
By DAVID MARTOSKO
DAILYMAIL.COM
27 July 2018
Donald Trump denied on Friday that he had any advance knowledge of a now-infamous 2016 meeting attended by his son, his son-in-law, his campaign chairman and a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties.
Reports based on unnamed sources swirled Thursday night that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is prepared to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president knew about the meeting ahead of time and approved of it.
Cohen, under the thumb of a federal investigation springing from a payoff to a porn actress who claimed before the 2016 election that she had bedded Trump, has become a reluctant apostate. He has turned on his former longtime boss in an effort to appease Mueller, hiring longtime Bill and Hillary Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis to plead his case.
‘NO, I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr.,’ Trump said Friday in a series of tweets. ‘Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?). He even retained Bill and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer. Gee, I wonder if they helped him make the choice!’
Sources close to Cohen, according to CNN, now say he is prepared to tell Mueller that he was in the room when Trump was told that a Russian lawyer wanted a meeting with Don Jr.
The lawyer, the Kremlin-connected Natalia Veselnitskaya, promised to bring helpful dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Instead she used the meeting to argue for the relaxation of U.S. sanctions against Russia that drove President Vladimir Putin to retaliate – in part by banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
Jared Kushner, who is married to first daughter Ivanka Trump, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, now awaiting trial on federal money-laundering and conspiracy charges, both attended the brief session at Trump Tower.
The jab about taxis refers to former Cohen business partner Evgeny ‘Gene’ Freidman, known as New York’s ‘Taxi King,’ who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in May and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Trump also mocked Mueller’s team on Friday for sifting through his social media postings as part of a wide-ranging investigation into alleged ties between the Kremlin and the president’s campaign organization.
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