we re told by sources with knowledge that michael cohen claims that then-candidate donald trump knew in advance about the june meeting in trump tower during which russians offered dirt on hillary clinton. these sources tell us cohen is willing to make that assertion to the special counsel robert mueller. so more details here. cohen alleges he was present along with several other people when trump was informed of the russians offer. who was he informed by? by donald trump jr., his son. by cohen s account, trump approved going ahead with that meeting with the russians. i should note, don, cohen does not have evidence such as audio recordings to corroborate this claim. i should also add that a source familiar with cohen s house testimony remember he testified on the hill said he did not testify at that time that trump had advance knowledge
what do you make of it? ait s a big story. it s a big story. particularly if he can corroborate it. even if he can t, if he can put this testimony into play for whoever wants the testimony, probably mueller, most likely, this is very damning for trump. it puts him in, depending on if he had knowledge in advance of where the russians were getting the information, it could make him an accessory to the russians conspiracy. if he didn t have that knowledge but approved the meeting, it could put him in a campaign act violation. we don t have all the facts. but just the details are important and what his exposure would be. but it certainly does look on its face like a conspiracy charge. that s what i was going to ask you, because you said it has to be corroborated, but it won t just be cohen versus trump on the credibility part, because there will be other evidence,
replied i love it to. it s always been an interesting defense, to say the least. another question, john, has to do with the drafting of the statement about the trump tower meeting by trump and hope hicks aboard air force one. this is from the washington post, june 1973, the story by carl bernstein, it says dean alleges nixon knew of coverup plan. are there similarities here, john? that s the sort of thing that leaked out. i never met with carl until after watergate was over. i learned 40 years after the fact that one of my lawyers was leaked to carl and bob. and as i say, they withheld that
is coming out and basically saying the president and many people around the president, perhaps michael cohen included, lied. and oftentimes we hear time and time again from folks associated with this white house and inside this white house one thing, and then the truth comes out later and it s not the same thing we heard from the white house. i think we need to call a thing a thing. we do not know at this point, don. what we do know is michael cohen was in trouble for some other stuff and he s doing everything he can to save his skin right now. perhaps we ll get the truth through michael cohen s desperate attempts to save himself. don, can i just to simone s point, i do think it is important that we know at least two things related to that trump tower meeting that the trump campaign and trump more broadly didn t tell the truth about. number one, they did not tell the truth about the nature of the meeting. remember, it was just an adoption meeting. it comes out later that dirt had b
suspect the trump camp is doing, is listening to the recordings they have as a result of the raid on michael cohen s offices, they got access to that material. and they may be looking for him dissembling with reporters who apparently he recorded, or any other recording where they can use that to help discredit him. you know, don, when i became a witness, there was a huge effort to discredit me. and i had it was just my word against nixon s until the tape came out. and they worked might i wiily t to discredit me. they floated what they thought would be my testimony, which was not my testimony. and so it really didn t happen until i actually delivered the statement, did they know what it was. so how does this work? i ve got a lot more to get to, but john, how does this work,