Trump ally Robert Costello reveals what he told the Manhattan grand jury
Donald Trump ally Robert Costello spoke to the grand jury on Monday as a defense witness for the former president to discredit lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been giving information to the district attorney.
Costello said that he began by handing D.A. Alvin Bragg five bundles of papers that he said should be given to the grand jury.
"In 2018, I gave essentially the same information to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, only after they notified me that Michael Cohen had executed a waiver of the attorney-client privilege," said Costello.
He went on to call it a "stupid" move because it allows him to be able to hand over incriminating information, he said.
Costello also claimed that the SDNY clearly didn't coordinate with Cohen on anything after that fact, implying that it was due to his "evidence" that he provided and Cohen's lack of reliability that Trump wasn't ever charged federally. The Justice Department never acted on the information that Cohen gave them because there is a policy of not indicting the sitting president.
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"Today after giving all those materials to the Manhattan district attorney's office, out of 321 emails they cherry-picked six emails to ask me about," Costello continued. "And, of course, they took them out of context. When they took them out of context, I told the grand jurors, I don't know whether this will ultimately come to fruition or not. I told them to ask for the entire packet. And I held it up. I said there's 321 emails. You need to see each and every email, which follows in chronological fashion and gives you the life history of Michael Cohen dealing with our firm. I understand that, earlier, there were some comments made by the folks out here that you were waiting for Trump's lawyers. We are not Trump's lawyers. We do not represent Trump. We have never represented Trump."
Instead, Costello has represented Rudy Giuliani in matters around Trump issues and his election and Steve Bannon in other unrelated matters.
Costello went on to say that Cohen was panicking after the FBI executed a search warrant of his office and home.
"He was imagining the worst for himself," said Costello, "although, at that moment in time, he still hadn't been charged with any crimes. So Michael Cohen, was in that state of high anxiety when he said to us numerous times, 'I'm looking for a way out. I need an escape hatch. How do I do this? I need to know what my options are.' And his options were, as he mentioned ... 'Do I have a chance for a pardon? Do I have a chance for a commutation?' I'm not sure he understood what that term actually meant. 'Do I have a chance for a cooperation agreement?' He said, 'I don't understand why they did this to me because I was already cooperating with the House and with the FBI.' Of course, he forgot to mention that he lied to the House, for which he was later convicted. So, I of course followed my obligations as an attorney and explained each of his rights and what he could do."
One of those things, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report, was to reassure Cohen that he'd be taken care of because he had friends in high places.
Cohen will deliver a rebuttal on Monday evening with MSNBC.
See that full video below or the link here.
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