- Michael Cohen's lawyer suggested that Cohen has information about President Donald Trump's knowledge of Russia's election interference and failure to report that to the FBI.
- If Cohen does have such information and it can be corroborated, "I think that's HUGE," said one legal scholar.
- Cohen's plea deal currently does not include a cooperation agreement, and his lawyer likely dangled information about his client's willingness to work with Mueller in order to secure a cooperation deal.
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Lanny Davis, the defense attorney representing Michael Cohen, dropped another bombshell about his client's potential knowledge of President Donald Trump's actions on Wednesday.
He suggested that Cohen has information about Trump's knowledge of Russia's election interference and failure to report that to the FBI.
Cohen is Trump's former longtime personal lawyer, and he pleaded guilty on Tuesday to eight counts related to tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations. He said he broke campaign finance law at Trump's direction.
Davis told MSNBC on Wednesday that Cohen "knows information that would be of interest to the special counsel regarding both knowledge about a conspiracy to corrupt American democracy by the Russians, and the failure to report that knowledge to the FBI."
He had previously teased that Cohen had "knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel," but he came right out and suggested a smoking gun on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
'That's HUGE'
Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Sean Gallup/Getty Images; Jenny Cheng/Business Insider
Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.
"I think that's HUGE," Jens David Ohlin, a vice dean at Cornell Law School, told Business Insider in response to Davis' comments.
"If Cohen will testify that Trump was aware of, and approved of, contacts between his campaign and Russia, then that's a real game-changer for the Mueller investigation."
Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor in Chicago, echoed that view.
Davis' claim that Cohen has evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy is "extremely important if true and can be corroborated," Cramer said. But he added that it was unclear why Davis announced it on national television.
"If he does have verifiable information, then give a call to the prosecutors," he said. "I'm sure they'd listen."
Cohen's guilty plea did not come as part of the Russia probe, but as part of a Manhattan US attorney's office investigation into whether he committed bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations while working for Trump.
His plea deal does not currently include a cooperation agreement, and legal scholars suggested that could be because prosecutors did not feel he had enough information to warrant a further reduction in his sentence, which will likely be three to five years.
But if Mueller feels Cohen has information of value related to the Russia investigation, he could argue for a more lenient sentence for Trump's former lawyer.
Cohen says Trump knew about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting
Mueller is tasked with investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election, whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow, and whether Trump sought to obstruct justice during the course of the investigation.
While the president is the central subject of Mueller's obstruction inquiry, his role in the collusion thread remains murkier.
In recent months, Trump attracted increased scrutiny after several of his associates suggested he knew more than he was letting on about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and two Russian lobbyists offering dirt on then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Skye Gould/Business Insider
Last month, it emerged that Cohen said Trump knew in advance about the meeting. CNN reported that Cohen claims he was one of several people who were present when Donald Trump Jr. informed Trump of the offer. Cohen reportedly said Trump greenlit the meeting after hearing about it from his son.
The president maintains he did not know about it until after it was reported in the media. He also recently acknowledged on Twitter that Trump Jr. took the meeting to get dirt on Clinton and not, as he said in previous statements, to discuss Russian adoptions.
Davis may have been 'dangling information' to get Cohen a better deal
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Robert Mueller.
Cohen is currently a subject of interest in several threads of the Russia investigation, including:
- the Trump Organization's push to build a Trump Tower in Moscow,
- the creation of a Russia-friendly "peace plan" during the early days of Trump's presidency,
- and his potential involvement in an unconfirmed trip to Prague during the summer of 2016 to meet with Kremlin-linked officials.
"Given Cohen's level of intimacy with Trump and his circle, it is at least highly likely that Cohen has information touching on those people in regards to Russian interference," said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who has worked with members of Mueller's team in the past.
He added that while it's unusual for a defendant to plead guilty before securing a cooperation agreement, it's not unheard of for the parties to want to enter the plea first and work out the details of cooperation later.
Cotter said he expected that was the case here. If they work out a deal later, Cohen could get a lighter sentence if he's a cooperating witness for Mueller's investigation.
Speculation mounted that Cohen was moving toward a plea deal as early as June, when he hired Guy Petrillo as his new defense lawyer. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told Business Insider at the time that Petrillo was "the kind of lawyer you would hire if you wanted to keep open the option of cooperation."
That speculation doubled in July when Cohen brought Davis, a Washington powerhouse famously associated with the Clinton family, onto his team.
"As soon as he hired Davis, it was clear Cohen wanted to cooperate," Cramer said. "He's not the guy you hire if you want to go to trial."
Davis told Business Insider's Allan Smith on Wednesday that Cohen "feels liberated that he can finally speak his mind about his concerns about Donald Trump."
By dropping hints about Cohen's potential knowledge pertaining to the Russia probe, Davis may have been "dangling information" to secure a cooperation deal for his client, Ohlin said.
"Or maybe he's just giving everyone a preview of what Cohen might say."