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Michael Cohen says Trump ally Robert Costello's 'making up stories' to grand jury: 'A typical Trump play'
March 20, 2023
Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen appeared on MSNBC on Monday evening after Trump ally Robert Costello spoke out about what he told the grand jury.
MSNBC's Ari Melber went line-by-line with what Costello said outside the New York court, and Cohen explained why what Costello claimed was absurd.
Cohen began by explaining that he had never even worked with Costello when he reached out to the law firm
"When he says he was speaking with you and advising you, was he your lawyer at the time?" Melber asked Cohen.
"No, in fact, there are so many things about his statement which is untrue, first and foremost, that I reached out to them. I didn't know Bob Costello from a hole in the wall," said Cohen. "In fact, the senior partner of the firm, Jeffrey Citron is the one who introduced us and said we should speak and so we set up a meeting. They came. I think either they brought me a retainer or said they were sending one or a letter of engagement. I never signed it. He was never my lawyer."
Another lie is that he waved attorney-client privilege, Cohen said he'd like to know when, where and how because he doesn't remember that.
He also said that the idea that Trump was just doing a "settlement" with adult film star Stormy Daniels is absurd because there was no lawsuit.
"She was going public at a bad time in the campaign," said Cohen.
He also said that the idea that he was accused of purgery and lying to Congress was because he cited real estate deals for Trump at three when the reality was ten. It had nothing to do with Daniels or anything in this case.
"It's a typical Donald J. Trump play out of the playbook,' said Cohen. "How do you muddy the water as best as he possibly can? Disparage them. They did the same thing to Cassidy Hutchinson and did the same thing to anyone and everyone that is for the truth, and the beauty, the beauty that I have is I have facts. I have truth. I have the documentation. Let me rephrase that. The district attorney has the documentation in order to validate every single statement that I've made and to basically dispel anything that Bob Costello has to say which is probably, again, why they didn't need me for rebuttal."
See a clip of the interview below or at the link here.
Cohen says Trump lawyer Robert Costello's 'making up stories' to grand jury: 'A typical Trump play' www.youtube.com
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House Republicans are trying to forge a new path under their new majority, but Donald Trump's looming indictment appears to be complicating that endeavor, NBC News reports.
At an annual retreat this week in Florida in which House Republicans had planned to hold substantive conversations about policy and messaging, talk has turned to the beleaguered ex-president who expects to be arrested Tuesday and is calling on his legions of supporters to protest on his behalf, the report said.
It's a familiar scenario for Republican, who the NBC News reports says have returned to “the same pattern they found themselves in during the four-year Trump presidency.”
So instead of focusing on serious issues such as the banking crisis and geopolitical uncertainty, Republicans are being forced to turn their attention to the legal plight of the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump ally Robert Costello reveals what he told the Manhattan grand jury
“It is what it is — hush money for a porn star. I mean, I couldn’t survive that,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-TX) told NBC News.
"It looks a little political, but I think we’re all exhausted from the drama of Trump.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), among other pro-Trump House lawmakers, are discouraging protests and urging people not to resort to violence.
But most House Republicans in attendance are uniting behind the former president.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is among those voices, and the judiciary chairman has sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requesting the prosecutor testify before congress, the report said.
Jordan called the Trump probe “politically motivated” “during a news conference called “Delivering on our Commitment to America."
“DOJ wouldn’t take the case. The Federal district of New York didn’t take the case. [Former Manhattan DA] Cy Vance wouldn’t take the case. Bragg didn’t want to take the case, and then what changed? President Trump announces he’s running for president and shazam!” Jordan said during a press conference in which lawmakers had planned to address questions over border security.
“We don’t think President Trump broke the law at all, but what concerns me is what they’re going to do based on what’s been reported."
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By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Workers erected barricades around a Manhattan courthouse on Monday as New York City braced for a possible indictment of Donald Trump over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.
It would be the first-ever criminal case against any U.S. president. On Saturday, Trump urged followers on social media to protest what he said was his looming arrest.
In his call for protests, Trump raised concerns for law enforcement that supporters might engage in violence similar to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Fearing a trap, however, several far-right grassroots groups have opted not to heed his call, security analysts said.
A grand jury, which heard further testimony on Monday, could bring charges as soon as this week. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the White House again in 2024, had predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.
On Monday the grand jury heard from a witness, lawyer Robert Costello, who said Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen had handled the hush-money payments without Trump's involvement.
"Michael Cohen decided on his own - that's what he told us - on his own, to see if he could take care of this," Costello told reporters after testifying to the grand jury at Trump's lawyers' request.
Cohen, who testified twice before the grand jury, has said publicly that Trump directed him to make the payments on Trump's behalf.
An indictment could hurt Trump's comeback attempt. Some 44% of Republicans say he should drop out of the presidential race if he is indicted, according to a seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday.
The investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of several legal challenges facing Trump. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and another woman in exchange for their silence about affairs they claimed with Trump.
Trump has denied that any such affairs took place.
NO SIGN OF UNREST
New York Mayor Eric Adams told reporters police were monitoring social media and keeping an eye out for "inappropriate actions" in the city. The New York Police Department said there were no known credible threats.
If charged, Trump would likely have to travel from his Florida home for fingerprinting and other processing. Law enforcement officials met on Monday to discuss the logistics, several media outlets reported.
Sources have said Bragg's office was presenting evidence to a grand jury about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Trump's fellow Republicans have widely criticized the probe as politically motivated.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump's rival for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Monday that Bragg was imposing a "political agenda" that compromised the rule of law, but he also took a veiled swipe at Trump.
"I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair," he told reporters.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation of Bragg's office with a letter seeking communications, documents and testimony related to the probe.
Trump was impeached twice by the House during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct regarding Ukraine and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.
SEVERAL MORE LEGAL CHALLENGES REMAIN
Bragg won a conviction last December against Trump's business on tax fraud charges.
But legal analysts say the hush-money case may be more difficult. Bragg's office will have to prove that Trump intended to commit a crime, and his lawyers will likely employ a range of counterattacks to try to get the case dismissed, experts say.
Trump meanwhile has to contend with other legal challenges, raising the possibility that he will have to shuttle between campaign stops and courtrooms before the November 2024 election.
Trump's lawyers on Monday asked a Georgia court to quash a special grand jury report detailing its investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 statewide election defeat.
The filing in Fulton County Superior Court also seeks to have the county district attorney, Fani Willis, recused from the case, arguing that her media appearances and social media posts demonstrated bias against Trump.
Trump is also seeking to delay a civil fraud trial, scheduled for Oct. 2, brought by the New York attorney general that alleges a decade-long scheme to manipulate the value of his assets to win better terms from bankers and insurers.
Trump faces two civil trials involving former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims that Trump defamed her by denying he raped her. A federal judge on Monday denied a request from both sides to combine the two cases into one.
(Additional reporting by Kaniska Singh, Jason Lange and David Morgan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
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