A November 2016 video of Michael Cohen indicates he lied under oath when he told lawmakers Wednesday that he didn’t want a job in the Trump administration.
At a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Cohen said, “I did not want to go to the White House. I was offered jobs.”
But he made clear in 2016 he wanted a Trump administration job. When told by CNN anchor Chris Cuomo that Trump would undoubtedly ask him to go Washington, D.C. with him, he responded: “I certainly hope so.” When asked if he go, he responded: “One hundred percent.”
Near the end of the interview, when the host said he looks forward to seeing what Cohen’s future holds, Cohen said, “Hopefully it’ll be in Washington.”
[Read more: Trump’s sons claim Michael Cohen was ‘lobbying’ for White House chief of staff job]
My segment this morning on #CNN #NewDayCNN with Chris Cuomo:https://t.co/Gp2hVim5Qr
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) November 10, 2016
Cohen said Wednesday that Trump had wanted him to work with Don McGahn in the White House counsel’s office, but he said he was worried about how that job would change his relationship with Trump.
“What I said at the time — and I brought a lawyer in who produced a memo as to why I should not go in because there would be no attorney-client privilege — and in order to handle some of the matters I talked about in my opening that it would be best suited for me not to go in and the every president had a personal attorney,” he said.
[Related: Could Michael Cohen be prosecuted for committing perjury again?]
Cohen has already been convicted and disbarred for lying to Congress once before, and members of Trump’s family said Cohen’s comments about not wanting to work with Trump in the White House was another lie.
Eric Trump tweeted on Wednesday: “Michael was lobbying EVERYONE to be ‘Chief of Staff.’ It was the biggest joke in the campaign and around the office. Did he just perjure himself again?”
Donald Trump Jr. responded to his brother Eric Trump, by tweeting: “Nailed it. It really was the biggest joke of the entire transition. The beginning of his bitterness was when he realized that was never going to happen. #Delusional.”
“Hahahaha Michael Cohen begged to work at the White House and everyone knows it,” Trump Jr. added in another tweet.
Others claiming to have firsthand knowledge also tweeted out that Cohen was lying. David Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager of Trump for President, said, “Michael Cohen asked me to support his effort to be Chief of Staff when I helped run the Presidential Transition Team. He perjured himself today.”
GOP operative Arthur Schwartz said Cohen was a “liar” and that Cohen “complained to [him] on numerous occasions about the fact that POTUS didn’t offer him a job at the WH.” Schwartz continued, “Everyone on or around the campaign either heard him talking about a job in the WH or heard the jokes about him thinking he was up for a job in the WH. He’s a professional liar — he can’t help himself.”
[Also read: Michael Cohen denies central part of Trump dossier: ‘I’ve never been to Prague’]
