Trump-Cohen allegations: White House denies president ordered lawyer to lie about Russia links as Congress launches investigations
White House press secretary was also questioned about alleged poll rigging
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The White House has denied allegations that Donald Trump ordered former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Law enforcement officials claimed Mr Trump had instructed Cohen to claim negotiations over the Russian project ended months earlier than they actually did, according to explosive new claims.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders vehemently denied the allegations, reported by Buzzfeed News, during a brief exchange with reporters on the White House driveway.
“Look, that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Ms Sanders said when questioned about the claims. She said the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani had addressed the subject and called the report “categorically false”.
In response to the allegations Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said: “Any suggestion – from any source – that the President counselled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false” and “today’s claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohen’s malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence.”
Ms Sanders was also asked whether Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to rig any polls, referring to the former lawyer’s admission that he paid a small technology firm thousands of dollars in 2015 to rig online polls “at the direction and of the sole benefit” of the president.
“I think again that one statement – those two words – sum it up better than anything anybody else can say, and that is ‘categorically false’,” Ms Sanders responded.
Michael Cohen, who last year pleaded guilty to federal crimes while implicating Mr Trump, admitted to paying between $12,000 and $13,000 to the owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC.
The officials said Cohen confirmed to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team - which is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia - that Mr Trump instructed the attorney to lie to the Senate and House intelligence committees.
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Show all 15It prompted immediate calls for the president to resign or face impeachment if the allegations were confirmed by Mr Mueller’s office.
With the US president still mired in deadlock over the government shutdown, the new allegations relating to Mr Cohen – sentenced to three years in prison in December – have prompted calls from top Democrats for his resignation or impeachment.
House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler have both pledged to investigate. Mr Schiff said: “We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true”.
Mr Cohen is set to testify before a congressional panel of the House of Representatives on 7 February about his role as Mr Trump’s right-hand man, following FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the president’s alleged ties to Russia.
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One author points out that Michael Cohen was known for recording his conversations...
House intelligence committee chairman plans to investigate BuzzFeed report that President Trump directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations over a Moscow real estate project in 2016.
Bizarrely, The New York Times does not carry a single mention of the Cohen story on its homepage, despite the story dominating media elsewhere.
Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani says: "Any suggestion – from any source – that the President counselled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false" and "today’s claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohen’s malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence.”
"What we are talking about here is not Russian hacking of Democratic party emails; not whether Trump is furthering the Kremlin's interests, or undermining Nato to please Putin. What we could have is direct commercial links to Moscow and alleged criminality."
Read more from Kim Sengupta on the Trump-Cohen scandal here:
Democrats are vowing to investigate whether Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate project, calling that possibility a "concern of the greatest magnitude."
Senator for Connecticut, Chris Murphy, is another Democrat calling for action over the allegations:
If Trump did tell Cohen to lie, that would constitute criminal activity, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who also said he would look into the matter.
"Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime," Nadler said on Twitter.
In other Trump related news, the president just finished a meeting with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chul. They met in the Oval Office to discuss denuclearisation, US Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed.
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