President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen wasn’t taken very seriously when he worked to secure a Trump Tower deal in Moscow and wasn’t a “deal guy,” according to Donald Trump Jr.
Despite Cohen’s efforts, Trump Jr., who is an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said there were many unknowns for the project, including the developer and the site, but didn’t disclose when the deal was last discussed with Cohen.
“Ultimately, it was Michael Cohen essentially trying to get a deal done,” Trump Jr. told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Monday evening. “He was there for a long time, he wasn’t exactly a deal guy. He didn’t bring too many to the table, so I don’t think anyone took it all that seriously. That is the reality of what went on.”
The comments follow BuzzFeed News’ bombshell report that claimed Trump Jr, along with his father President Trump and his sister Ivanka Trump, requested Cohen to move forward on a Trump Tower in Moscow and check in with them about the potential project throughout the 2016 election.
The report claimed Trump told Cohen to lie when the deal was being discussed to Congress, but in a rare public statement special counsel Robert Mueller’s office disputed the story. BuzzFeed has stood by its reporting.
Concerns about the Trump Trump Tower Moscow project remain at the forefront, as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., seeks testimony from Cohen about the BuzzFeed report. Cohen is slated to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee next month.
Over the weekend, President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani offered conflicting accounts of when the deal was last discussed, saying on Sunday discussions occurred “throughout 2016″ and occurred “up to as far as October, November” 2016, which would be longer than previously known and right up to the presidential election. But on Monday, he backpedaled that his comments “were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”
Ingraham pressed Trump Jr. on the timeline for when the deal was last talked about, but Trump didn’t share additional insight.
“I don’t know,” Trump Jr. said. “I don’t talk about things I don’t know about.”
Cohen pleaded guilty in November to “knowingly and willfully” making “a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement and representation” to the House and Senate Intelligence committees in 2017 regarding the real estate project in Moscow. He was sentenced to two months in prison for the charge, which will be served concurrently with the three years he received for campaign finance violations and tax and bank fraud.
Mueller and several congressional panels are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin. Trump has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt,” and Trump Jr. told Ingraham that his father has been the subject of the “greatest witch hunt in American history — perhaps world history.”
