Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Cohen Willing To Tell Mueller ‘All That He Knows’ About Collusion, Lawyer Says

President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen is willing to speak with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about a “conspiracy to collude” with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, Cohen’s attorney said Tuesday night.

Cohen’s legal representative, Lanny Davis, said that Cohen held knowledge “of interest” and was “more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows,” the Washington Post reported.

Davis said Cohen’s knowledge reached beyond “the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude” and included whether Trump knew about, participated in and even cheered on a “criminal conspiracy” to hack into the emails of Democratic officials during the election.

Cohen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to evading personal income taxes, making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution, making a false statement to a financial institution and making an excessive campaign contribution in October 2016. Trump responded by saying that these developments had “nothing to do with Russian collusion,” the Post reported.

Cohen acknowledged the charges in federal court and said he was directed to violate campaign law at the direction of a candidate for federal office. Cohen said he paid $130,000 to somebody to keep them quiet, per the same candidate’s orders. It was later repaid by the candidate. The facts match Cohen’s payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged that she and Trump had an affair, as well as Trump’s repayment of Cohen’s efforts.

Cohen also said that the purpose of the payments were to swing the results of the election, which Trump won.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.