MICHAEL COHEN/RUDY GIULIANI/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In a day of confusing statements, President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani first startled observers with a public claim of a previously unknown meeting involving top Trump associates and Kremlin-linked Russians — then recanted the claim and said the meeting ‘never happened.’ During a nearly 45-minute interview on CNN at 8 a.m., Giuliani said Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, who appears to have turned on his former boss, claims that top Trump officials met at Trump Tower to plan for a scheduled June 9, 2016 meeting days later with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer promising dirt on Trump’s campaign rival, Hillary Clinton. In a subsequent interview four hours later — and after some Democrats said the earlier meeting amounted to new evidence of calculated collusion with Russia — Giuliani denied it ever took place, saying he was merely repeating a claim that multiple reporters had been asking him about. It was the latest of several instances in which Giuliani — a former New York City mayor, federal prosecutor and presidential candidate — seemed to confuse or distort key facts about the Russia investigation and related legal headaches for his presidential client.”
–Rebecca Morin, “‘Never happened’: Giuliani walks back confusing claim of secret Trump Tower meeting,” Politico, July 30, 2018 6:34 pm