Michael Cohen was in the room
When Michael Cohen walked into a courtroom yesterday to plead guilty, and then told the judge that Donald Trump was his co-conspirator, it turns out the saga was just beginning. Cohen hasn’t spoken since, but his attorney Lanny Davis is speaking rather loudly. Tonight he went on CNN and made a startling Trump-Russia announcement: Michael Cohen was in the room.
Davis confirmed on-air on CNN that Michael Cohen participated in the meeting between Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, and other members of the Trump campaign which took place a few days before Trump Jr met with the Russians at Trump Tower. The public first learned about this “planning meeting” when Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani blurted it out on cable news weeks ago, before later trying to walk it back. Trump then later tweeted that he didn’t know about Junior’s Russia meeting in advance. This new revelation changes things significantly.
This now means that Michael Cohen can testify that he was in the room when Donald Trump signed off on the Russia meeting in advance, and that Trump knew about the nature of the meeting. Donald Trump Jr was told in advance that the Russians in question were representing the Russian government, and that they were offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. This means Junior was committing several felonies, including attempting to receive stolen goods, and attempting to accept foreign items of value on behalf of a campaign.
So we now have confirmation, from a witness who was in the room, that Donald Trump was a criminal co-conspirator in those felonies. Now that Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty, he’ll need to cooperate with prosecutors as much as possible in order to end up with the least amount of jail time. This new revelation from Cohen’s lawyer makes clear that Cohen has the goods and that he’s willing to give it all to Robert Mueller, if he hasn’t already.
