Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis reveals he was the anonymous source of CNN’s Trump Tower story – and admits he LIED about the president having prior knowledge of the notorious meeting
Lanny Davis has backpedaled on two key claims about Cohen’s knowledge
Admitted he was source for bombshell CNN report about Trump Tower meeting
Now says he can’t confirm Cohen saw Trump being advised ahead of meeting
Also backtracking on claim Cohen can confirm Trump knew of Russian hacking
Lawyer’s gaffes deal serious blow to liberal dreams of Cohen taking Trump down
By KEITH GRIFFITH
DAILYMAIL.COM
28 August 2018
Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis has backpedaled on several key claims, sowing doubt that Cohen could tie President Donald Trump to claims of Russian election interference.
In a series of interviews, Davis backtracked two assertions: that Cohen saw Trump being advised beforehand of a notorious Trump Tower meeting, and that Cohen could testify whether Trump was aware of Russian hacking.
Davis admitted to BuzzFeed News that he was a source for a bombshell CNN report last month claiming that Cohen was willing to testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance about a meeting between Don Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower in 2016. That claim, Davis now says, he cannot confirm.
The report cited anonymous sources, saying that Davis had declined to comment on the record. Now Davis says that he was one of the background sources, and couldn’t clear up the record until Cohen pleaded guilty last week, because of the ongoing criminal investigation.
The CNN report, which got prime-time play on the network, excited the President’s opponent’s with the possibility that Cohen had and was willing to offer prosecutors information damaging to Trump.
Top CNN reporters Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen and Carl Bernstein – of Watergate reporting fame – had bylines on the story.
CNN is standing by its report.
Other outlets that raced to confirm the CNN ‘scoop’ in July, including the New York Post and Washington Post, have now admitted that Davis was their source, and published the lawyer’s apologies for misleading them.
‘I regret that I wasn’t clear enough to The Post. I should have been more clear. I could not independently confirm the information in the CNN story,’ Davis told the New York paper.
‘I regret my error,’ Davis said to the DC outlet.
Davis also is hedging suggestions he made on television last week that Cohen could tell Mueller about whether Trump was aware of and encouraged Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign before it became publicly known.
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