Michael Cohen was pitching his close access to President Donald Trump to private companies and potential clients without the President’s knowledge, according to Trump’s new lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“I talked to the President only one time about this and that was the first day it came out and he wasn’t aware of that situation that now, I guess, the facts are getting a little contorted,” Giuliani told CNN Thursday.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday evening that Cohen bragged about his access to Trump and even showed pictures of himself and Trump to potential clients. A Republican strategist who spoke with CNN said that Cohen would tell clients that they should “fire” their current lawyers and hire him because “I’m closest to the President. I’m his personal lawyer.”
Trump “wasn’t aware of the situation in which he got money from any of that group that was mentioned originally,” Giuliani added. “I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. He didn’t know about any of the original stuff.”
It was revealed on Tuesday that several companies paid Cohen’s consulting firm in order to gain insight into the Trump administration, including AT&T and the American affiliate of a company owned by a Russian oligarch who attended Trump’s inauguration.
