My ci can worry about it,ine. Or do something about it. Garlique® helps maintain healthy cholesterol naturally. And its odor free. And pharmacist recommended. Garlique. ® good evening. A from the people that brought you the notion that truth isnt truth, heres something new. Crime that isnt crime, noncrime, by the way that President Trump says he never committed even though at least some of his argument is undermined by his own voice on tape, and the surreal little nugget is part of the picture as the president and his people spin the reality that two more of the former associates are felons and one of them Attorney Michael Cohen tied him under oath to pair of crime. His attorney joins us momentarily. As for the president , he responded today by slamming mr. Cohen on twitter, saying, if anyone is looking for a good lawyer, i would strongly suggest you dont retain the services of Michael Cohen. Lat later, the president turned to the fact and law twisting
portion of his morning, quote, Michael Cohen pled guilty to two counts of Campaign Finance violations that are not a crime. President obama had a big Campaign Violation an easily settled. On the second point, first, the president appears to be referring to a 2008 Obama Campaign which was fined 375,000 by the federal Election Commission for missing certain reporting deadlines. The matter didnt rise to the criminal level because there is no evidence that the misreporting was deliberate. By contrast, mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to a pair of violations that not only were deliberate but also according to cohens statement were done and i quote, in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office. He bought the silence of Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougal right before the election and he pleaded guilty to it. As for it not being a crime, perhaps mr. Cohen should tell that to the judge at his sentencing. Beyond this legal claim which well discuss shortly with jeff toobin and allen dershowitz, he the president also says that he did not have advance knowledge of the hush payments, also that those payments were lawful. Heres what he said to fox. Did you know about the payment . Later on i knew. Later on. But you have to understand, what he did and they werent taken out of Campaign Finance. Thats a big thing. Thats a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign . They didnt come out of the campaign. They came from me, and i tweeted about it, you know, i dont know if you know, but i tweeted about the payments. But they didnt come out of campaign. In fact, my first question when i heard about it was, did they come out of the campaign . Because that could be a little dicey. And they didnt come out of the campaign. And thats big. But they werent thats not a thats not even a Campaign Violation. If you look at president obama, he had a massive Campaign Violation. But he had a different Attorney General and they viewed it a lot different. Well, again, the obama Campaign Violation certainly drew a hefty fine but was a misdemeanor not a felony. As for the claim the payments he
this a number of times. Just because you continue to ask the same questions over and over, im not going to give you a different answer. If you want something further, i would refer you to the president s outside counsel. We have addressed this a number of times. The president s addressed this a number of times. I addressed all im going to say on the cohen issue. Once again, the president has expressed his views on this matter and i have nothing else to add. Saying you addressed something, thats not saying you answered it, that just means you responded to it. You didnt actually answer the question. Well, the only correspondent who managed to press Sarah Sanders today, or really press, was cnns kaitlan collins. I want to play the interchange she had with Sarah Sanders so you get a better sense of the moment. In his interview, the president said he found out about those payments that Michael Cohen made later on. But hes on tape discussing how to make one of the payments with Michael Cohen. So before the payment was made. So, how do you explain that . Once again, ive commented on this pretty extensively. What i can tell you about this
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Taken a course he hopes shows hes taking responsibility. Secondly, the prosecutors did a thorough job of investigating the facts. And what he said in what is called the allocution where he is talking to the judge about what he is admitting to, on the key issues involving President Trump. He said that he was, according to the words of whats called the allocution, that he specifically was directed and coordinated through President Trumps direction the payment of this money to miss daniels and he took responsibility under oath and said that that was a an illegal act, because it had a primary political purpose, which is the criminal violation of the Campaign Finance law. You can understand why some people are skeptical. Sure. Hes doing this under oath. I know you said you only started working with him because he
convinced you he really wanted to start telling the truth. He did, though, have his own friend and attorney, David Schwartz, go out on Television Time and time again, i interviewed him multiple times, repeating the lies that cohen was telling back at that time. I dont know if he lied to David Schwartz. I mean, did did he lie to David Schwartz . If he lied to schwartz, couldnt he be lying to you . Of course. It took me a while to talk and get to know michael and his decision to change his life and as he said to me, hit the reset button and recognize you cant get a redo in life when you make mistakes and some of the things that he did for mr. Trump he talked to me about and not being particularly proud of or things that he said that werent true on camera. He is not particularly proud of that. Isnt that A Change Of Heart only after his offices are raided and he realizes he is facing possible serious jail time . Sure. But when we talked, it was mostly about his feelings about mr. Trump, his positions on issues, his conduct of the presidency and what i found after quite a long period of time talking to him, a sincere conviction that mr. Trump represented a danger to the country. And would i help him tell his story, which, i guess im known as a Crisis Manager to get facts out and to, no matter what youve done up to a point, to take responsibility for your mistakes. But i mean, thats such its such a huge change of heart for this guy. He was the guy that said he would take a bullet for him. He was on cnn during the Campaign Take the bullet. Yeah. Saying things which were, you know, probably demonstratively false, but he would he was an
attack dog for the president , to now suddenly say he believes the president s a danger to the country. Thats more than a 180. I dont even know what that is. Well, there are people in life that have Transformative Experiences and theyre sincere and there are people that continue to lie and are opportunists, and you have to judge which is which when you use your instincts when you get to know someone. I took awhile in making the judgment that he was ready to talk about mr. Trump and his knowledge about mr. Trump and the disadvantages that he now saw that as a businessman were very dangerous as president. Now, whether hes telling the truth or not is anybodys judgment, and your skepticism is certainly not only entitled, but founded on what he did in the past. I made the judgement that i believed him. And i would believe him based on his words and his deeds. On sorry. Go ahead. I mean, so far i still believe hes telling the truth. On Good Morning Americatoday, you said that Michael Cohen, and i quote, can now speak completely the truth without the shadow of the potential Prosecution Hanging over him. You said you thought hed be willing to speak without any guarantee of immunity. If thats true, why doesnt Michael Cohen hold a Press Conference tonight or tomorrow morning and just speak the truth . If he has no Shadow Hanging over him, doesnt care about immunity, why doesnt he just stand up in public and say everything he knows right now . Well, several reasons. First of all, the criminal case in the Southern District is not over. There is still a question of sentencing and assessing under the guidelines. But wouldnt that speak in his favor if, i mean, if hes told the prosecutors everything he already knows, why cant he just now tell the public everything he already knows . I can only tell you, anderson, to complete the thought, that He Hasnt Fini finished that his lawyer has not finished the discussions with the prosecutors, who hes been very respectful of, and
until those discussions on all the details, including, he has a wife and two kids, period of incarceration that hes facing, his lawyers have given him advice that hes got to wait. He also has the Special Counsel, who hes either going to be talking to or has talked to, i wont be able to tell you which right. But there are a lot of moving parts in a very tragic situation that there will come a time, as i said on Good Morning America when the shadow of uncertainty becomes certainty, hes going to be incarcerated and hes going to leave his family behind quite traumatized, that he wants to turn his life and Tell The Truth. You were just on with wolf blitzer. You said that Michael Cohen was present for a meeting with thencandidate trump and don jr. About the Trump Tower Meeting. This is important. You also said that Michael Cohen testified truthfully to the Senate Intelligence committee and according to the chair and
vice chair of the committee, he told them he had no knowledge of the meeting until he saw it in the press. How can both of those things be true . Either he knew about the meeting or he didnt know about the meeting. Well, i think the reporting of the story got mixed up in the course of a criminal investigation. We were not the source of the story. And the question of a criminal investigation, the advice we were given, those of us dealing with the bee ya, is that we could not do anything other than stay silent. So can you say now whether in fact Michael Cohen has information that President Trump was aware either before the Trump Tower Meeting that don jr. Was part of with russian attorney from the kremlin with dirt on Hillary Clinton, either that Michael Cohen has information that president knew about it in advance or knew about it immediately after . Senator burr and Senator Warner read the answer to the question about his testimony
which is that he said he was not aware ahead of time. And did not hear anything to the contrary and that was the testimony before the senate as well as the house intelligence committees and he said that testimony was accurate. So Michael Cohen does not have information that President Trump knew about the Trump Tower Meeting with the russians beforehand or even after . No. Theres not. I know you wont say if you spoke to muellers team. Im obviously not going to press you on that. You said last night that you believe Michael Cohen, quote, has knowledge about whether or not thencandidate trump knew about the Computer Crime of hacking and whether or not mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on. Do you stand by that tonight . I think i was a little bit more tentative on that. I think what i said was that at some point, mr. Cohen might be able to be useful to the special
counsel about whether President Trump knew ahead of time about the hacking of the Hillary Clinton emails. And its not a certainty the way he recalls it. May or may not be useful to mr. Mueller and i dont want to go beyond my intuition. Right. I know you have to be careful. I used the expression i think what he can say would be useful. And thats the way i have to leave it. There are two fascinating details in the Charging Document that havent gotten a lot of attention. One is on page 16 of the criminal information document. I should call it. It says that cohen coordinated with one or more members of the Campaign Including through meetings and phone calls about the fact, nature and timing of the payments. Talking about the payments to Stormy Daniels and mcdougal. We know one person was the president. If, in, there was another person involved in the campaign who he was talking about this with, emailing, discussing, do you know who that other person was . No, i dont. And theyre unidentified in youre reading from the information document. Correct. Underlying the plea. And i do not know that. And if i did, i would not be able to discuss that because hes still in the process of dealing with the prosecutors on all of the issues that still remain. Can you say if there is another person from the campaign or even who is now in the white house . I cant say. Okay. I cant say. Did you ever ask Michael Cohen that question . Ive talked to Michael Cohen about a lot of things, but the specifics until the information came out, i was not aware of the details of what the government was saying and who was involved
in the campaign of command on the decision to pay what looks like an Illegal Campaign contribution that he has owned up to under oath, which mr. Trump has not, but no, the answer is i dont know the identity of a number of individuals that are not identified in that information. Because obviously, the reason im pushing on it, if there is another individual that knows about the payments and part of the campaign and maybe is still part of the white house, that would obviously be extremely important and a new detail an a fascinating one. The other detail in the documents is that Michael Cohen charged the Trump Organization 50,000 for what he listed as text services, which according to the court document, which was, related to work that cohen solicited from a tech company during and in connection with the campaign. Previously Michael Cohen supposedly had no role in the campaign. Can you say what company that was and what services were rendered or was that another payment to protect then candidate trump . Or can you even say if Michael Cohen was involved in the campaign . I just learned all this in the last several days. Because, as you know, the final Plea Agreement and the final statement in court was just a couple of days ago. So, i havent gotten the ability to find out the answer to that question, either. I believe that mr. Cohen referenced that contract as something that he was doing to assist the campaign. But i dont know too much about that, either. Im sorry. But officially Michael Cohen was not part of the campaign. Isnt that correct. So if, in fact, he was if he was telling the truth in what that billing was, he was claiming to the Trump Organization that he was actually doing work for the campaign, which here to for had not been known. Well, i think just reading it without knowing the details, i just read what you read, it appears that he had a contract to provide technology support
and he supplied that vendor to the campaign and passed through the expense. But im just reading something that i dont know much about. I have not talked to mr. Cohen about so im just speculating. Lanny davis, i appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Just ahead, were going to break this down with our own legal analysts, Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz. And later, Stormy DanielsAttorney Michael Avenatti on all thats transpired in the last 24 hours, some of which he predicted and where things may go from here for his client and as well as his onetime adversary,