Last night, BuzzFeed reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier broke a story which stated that President Trump directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower project in Moscow. The two sources are anonymous federal law enforcement officials:
Now the two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.
The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.
This revelation is not the first evidence to suggest the president may have attempted to obstruct the FBI and special counsel investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
But Cohen's testimony marks a significant new frontier: It is the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia.
On the campaign trail, Trump vehemently denied having any business interests in Russia. But behind the scenes, he was pushing the Moscow project, which he hoped could bring his company profits in excess of $300 million. The two law enforcement sources said he had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal during the campaign.
Although White House spokesman Hogan Gidley attacked Cohen's credibility in an interview with Fox News this morning, Gidley did not deny the allegation set out in the BuzzFeed story. Nor was a denial forthcoming from Kellyanne Conway who lamented the sources were law enforcement officials.
Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani finally denied the allegation. But it was only a couple of days ago that Giuliani told CNN's Chris Cuomo that he didn't deny the Trump campaign colluded with Russia while claiming Trump himself had no such involvement. I have a feeling Giuliani's story could soon change.
Naturally, there is scrutiny about the reporters themselves, particularly Leopold who reported in 2006 that Karl Rove and other senior Bush Administration officials were going to face indictment in the Valerie Plame affair, but this did not come to pass.
But let us assume that Leopold and Cormier got it right. It doesn't mean they'll become the next Woodward and Bernstein. I agree with NRO's Rich Lowry that Trump won't resign nor will be impeached:
Why would Trump ever quit? This is a man who has fought and clawed for every ounce of public attention -- good or bad -- he can get throughout his adult life, and now, occupying the biggest bully pit on the planet, he's just going to walk away?
Lowry goes on to state, "He's the least likely president to get worn down by an impeachment fight. What would discourage or deflate the normal human energizes him." Besides, no Republican controlled Senate would ever remove him from office. Lowry concludes that Trump critics would be "better directed towards the less spectacular, yet difficult enough task of beating him in 2020."
And that probably won't be enough. It is quite possible that it can proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Trump committed federal crimes and the people won't see fit to remove him from office. In which case, Trump might be tempted to take a gun with him back to Fifth Avenue and fire it with impunity.
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