President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that conversations about a potential Trump Tower deal in Moscow — conversations involving then-candidate Trump — occurred “as far as October, November” of 2016.
“It’s our understand that they went on throughout 2016,” Giuliani told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd
“Not a lot of them, but there were conversations. We can’t be sure of the exact dates, but the President can remember having conversations with [Michael Cohen] about it.”
Giuliani said Trump and Cohen’s conversations about the Moscow deal went on “probably up to as far as October, November.”
“Our answers” — in written statements to special counsel Robert Mueller — “cover until the election, so anytime during that period they could have talked about it,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani denied that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timeline of the deal, as BuzzFeed News recently reported, but acknowledged that “it could be true” that the former Trump fixer lied to Congress after consulting with Trump’s lawyers — Giuliani named John Dowd, Jay Sekulow, and Ty Cobb. Cohen was in a joint defense agreement with Trump at the time.
WATCH: @rudygiuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, says that negotiations over Trump Tower Moscow likely went up to the 2016 election. #MTP pic.twitter.com/ctceKHLIZN
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 20, 2019
Giuliani’s timeline extends beyond what Cohen acknowledged in pleading guilty to lying to Congress about the deal: In that timeline, discussions about the tower continued through June 2016.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Giuliani said Trump “acknowledged” in his written statements to Mueller “that [he and Cohen] had conversations about it throughout 2015, 2016.”
Giuliani also granted that Trump may have talked to Cohen about the congressional testimony ahead of time. “And so what if he talked to him about it?”
In the same appearance, Giuliani disputed that the timeline meant Trump was lying when he repeatedly claimed to have “nothing to do” with Russia.
Trump said in an October 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton: “I don’t deal there. I have no businesses there.”
He said in February 2017: “I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.”
Those statements weren’t lies, Giuliani argued. Cohen, he said, “wrote a nonbinding letter of intent.”
“The President gave the accurate answer,” he added.
This post has been updated.
So… The Buzzfeed report was, in substance, true ?
Does Rudy coordinate with the WH these days ?
But they printed it on the wrong paper, used the wrong font, and in the wrong tone of ink, so it is totally discredited.
This is a huge nothing-burger. Trump was a CANDIDATE for the presidency until he was elected in Nov. During ALL of 2016, the likelihood of his election was low. On the morning of his election, he was convinced that he would lose.
So, what is the problem with his conduct of his business prior to his election? Answer: This was not a problem, since he had NO official status prior to Nov 8, 2016, and even after that. Until Jan 19, he was the PEOTUS, not the POTUS.
Times Roman. That’s the ticket laddie.
This is certainly a damning admission by Giuliani and I hope it gets intense exposure. But it’s not documentary evidence in emails and testimony of Trump having directed Cohen to lie to Congress, which was the claim Buzzfeed made.