President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen "remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel," his lawyers said in a court filing late Friday, while preparing what he now says was a false statement to Congress about the president's real estate endeavors in Russia during his campaign.
The filing sought a reduced sentence for Cohen, who pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee about a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen crafted that statement, his lawyers wrote, to maintain Trump team messaging which "portray[ed] contact with Russian representatives" as "having effectively terminated before the Iowa caucuses of February 1, 2016."
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