A former lawyer for Donald Trump has admitted that he lied to Congress about a Russian property deal involving the US President during the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen admitted before a federal judge in Manhattan that negotiations to build a skyscraper in Moscow had continued until June 2016, while Trump was running for the White House – five months longer than Cohen had originally stated.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The BBC reports that Cohen lied to Congress “out of loyalty to Mr Trump”, while the US president has since accused his former lawyer of “lying to prosecutors in the hope of receiving a reduced sentence”.
“I made these misstatements to be consistent with individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to individual 1,” Cohen said in court. He has previously identified “individual 1” to be Donald Trump.
Cohen has previously pleaded guilty to violating campaign funding laws during the 2016 election, when he disbursed hush money to several women who had claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
CNN reports that the deal to build a Trump tower in Moscow included an offer to gift a £39 million penthouse apartment in the building to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Current Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has dismissed the reports, denying that the US president had ever heard of it, and that the idea “never got anywhere beyond an unfunded letter of intent and never even a proposal or draft contract”.
However, the Washington Post reports that Cohen briefed Donald Trump on the project “on more than three occasions”, according to court filings.
-
Moon dust has earthly elements thanks to a magnetic bridgeUnder the radar The substances could help supply a lunar base
-
World’s oldest rock art discovered in IndonesiaUnder the Radar Ancient handprint on Sulawesi cave wall suggests complexity of thought, challenging long-held belief that human intelligence erupted in Europe
-
Claude Code: the viral AI coding app making a splash in techThe Explainer Engineers and noncoders alike are helping the app go viral
-
Is Alex Pretti shooting a turning point for Trump?Today’s Big Question Death of nurse at the hands of Ice officers could be ‘crucial’ moment for America
-
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ comes into confounding focusIn the Spotlight What began as a plan to redevelop the Gaza Strip is quickly emerging as a new lever of global power for a president intent on upending the standing world order
-
Trump sues JPMorgan for $5B over ‘debanking’Speed Read Trump accused the company of closing his accounts for political reasons
-
ICE memo OKs forcible entry without warrantSpeed Read The secret memo was signed last May
-
Halligan quits US attorney role amid court pressureSpeed Read Halligan’s position had already been considered vacant by at least one judge
-
Can anyone stop Donald Trump?Today's Big Question US president ‘no longer cares what anybody thinks’ so how to counter his global strongman stance?
-
How Iran protest death tolls have been politicisedIn the Spotlight Regime blames killing of ‘several thousand’ people on foreign actors and uses videos of bodies as ‘psychological warfare’ to scare protesters
-
Trump’s Greenland ambitions push NATO to the edgeTalking Points The military alliance is facing its worst-ever crisis
