Michael Cohen returned from a trip to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this year believing his former longtime boss would pardon him in exchange for his loyalty, according to a new report.
Cohen, a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, was under the impression after the March 2018 visit to the Florida club that the president would pardon him if he faced any charges for sticking to his story about the payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, CNN reported Friday.
Trump was also staying at Mar-a-Lago during the time of Cohen’s trip.
After Cohen’s office and home were raided by the FBI in April, people close to Trump reassured Cohen that the president would have his back, the news outlet said. Cohen understood that to mean Trump would offer him a pardon if he stuck to his story.
Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said the president “never indicated anything to Michael, or anyone else, about getting a pardon.”
“Pardons are off the table, but it’s not a limitation on his power in the future to pardon in any case,” Giuliani said.
Trump began to distance himself from Cohen weeks after the raid, claiming his attorney of more than a decade only did a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work.
Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for his former boss, pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to Congress about the Russia investigation. He has given more than 70 hours of testimony to Mueller’s team in the past few months.
He previously pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts relating to the payments to Daniels and tax fraud.