One of Michael Cohen’s lawyers raised the possibility of his client receiving a presidential pardon, according to a new report. Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” is headed to jail and recently gave a scathing testimony for a congressional committee.
The report claims that Trump’s lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani, and Joanna Hendon, dismissed the idea of a pardon at the time, but Giuliani “left open the possibility that the president could grant Mr. Cohen one in the future.”
Last Wednesday, Cohen testified in front of the House Oversight Committee, saying: “I never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr. Trump.” The report said that “there is no indication Mr. Cohen personally asked for a pardon or that he was aware of any discussion on the topic.”
In 2018, Cohen was convicted of lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project. There is evidence that suggests he may have lied about not wanting a job in the Trump administration in his most recent testimony as well.
The conversations between Cohen’s attorney and Trump’s attorneys are allegedly now part of the Judiciary Committee obstruction of justice investigation that was launched today. The Judiciary Committee has asked Trump’s attorneys for information on “possible pardons for Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, or Michael Cohen.”
Cohen’s home and office was raided by the FBI on April 9, 2018. By early fall, Trump and Cohen had already had a major falling out. In May of 2018, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that Cohen was no longer Trump’s lawyer. In June 2018, Trump himself confirmed that Cohen was no longer his lawyer. And by early July 2018, Cohen said he’d be willing to cooperate with prosecutors. Later that month he revealed he’d been secretly recording the president.
In July 2018, President Trump tweeted: “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped – can this be so? Too bad!”
A month later, Cohen pleaded guilty on eight counts and claimed that Trump directed him to make hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
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