3/6/2019

HOUSE OF REPS/INTELLIGENCE/LEGAL/MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Michael D. Cohen on Wednesday [3-6-19] provided new documents to the House Intelligence Committee that he said illustrated changes made at the request of President Trump’s lawyers to a knowingly false written statement that he delivered to Congress in 2017, according to three people familiar with the matter. Mr. Cohen, in what was expected to be his last visit to Capitol Hill, brought multiple drafts of his 2017 statement along with emails with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about its drafting, hoping to back up claims that he made last week at an open hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. In that session, Mr. Cohen testified that there were ‘changes made, additions’ to the original written statement, including about the length of negotiations over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign. It was not immediately clear how many changes were made by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, or how drastic those changes were. Two of the people familiar with the documents and Mr. Cohen’s testimony, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the closed-door session, said that at least some of the changes appeared to play down the knowledge of the president’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, about the project.”

Nicholas Fandos and Maggie Haberman, “Cohen Offers Documents in Bid to Show Trump Lawyers Helped With False Testimony,” The New York Times online, March 6, 2019