I lied about Russia links to help Trump’s election chances, says Michael Cohen

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has admitted he lied about the Trump Organisation’s business links with Russia.

Michael Cohen leaves the federal court in New York where he admitted lying about Donald Trump’s Russia links. Picture: AFP.

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has admitted he lied about the Trump Organisation’s business links with Russia to help Mr Trump’s chances of ­becoming president.

Mr Cohen yesterday pleaded guilty in surprise charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller of lying to congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in 2016.

The US President’s former lawyer said he had lied when he claimed to congress that negotiations over a Trump Tower had ended in January 2016, before the presidential primaries began.

In fact, Mr Cohen said, talks continued until June 2016, when it was clear Mr Trump had won the Republican nomination. He said Mr Trump and his family were regularly briefed on the progress of the negotiations.

In July 2016, a month after Trump Tower negotiations ended, Mr Trump claimed he had had no dealings with Moscow.

He said at the time: “I have a great company. I built an unbelievable company, but if you look there you’ll see there’s nothing in Russia. But zero, I mean, I will tell you right now, zero, I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Mr Cohen, 52, faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in August to bank fraud, tax evasion and campaign finance ­violations over the payment of hush money to two women who alleged they had affairs with Mr Trump.

The President reacted angrily to the news Mr Cohen pleaded guilty and that he would now be co-operating with the Mueller team. “He was convicted of various things unrelated to us,” he said, adding, “He’s a weak person and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence.”

He defended the 2016 negotiations about the Trump Tower, saying it was a legitimate part of his business and that he had not yet been elected president. “There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?” he said ­before flying to the G20 summit in Argentina. “We decided — I decided ultimately — not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.”

Mr Cohen told a judge in New York that he was guilty of deliberately lying about the Trump Tower negotiations in order to protect Mr Trump.

“I was aware of Individual 1’s (Mr Trump’s) repeated disavowals of commercial and political ties between himself and Russia, his repeated statements that investigations of such ties were politic­ally motivated and without evidence, and that any contact with Russian nationals by Individual 1’s campaign or the Trump ­Organisation had all terminated before the Iowa caucus, which was on February 1 of 2016,” Mr Cohen told the judge.

“I made these misstatements to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual 1.”

The charges are the latest in a spectacular and growing rift between Mr Trump and Mr Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet to protect the President.

Mr Cohen, who as Mr Trump’s personal lawyer had intimate knowledge of the President’s business and personal activities, has reportedly given some 70 hours of testimony already to the Mueller team.

His latest guilty plea comes amid a flood of developments in the Mueller investigation, including news this week that Mr Trump has not ruled out a pardon for his former campaign chief Paul Manafort, who has been accused of lying to Mueller’s prosecutors.

The President has been ramping up his attacks on Mr Mueller, issuing daily tweets about it. “Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime,’’ he tweeted yesterday. “At the same time Mueller and the Angry Democrats aren’t even looking at the atrocious, and perhaps subversive, crimes that were committed by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. A total disgrace!”.

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia