In the News

CNBC
'Yes': Michael Cohen says President Trump had potential to 'collude' with foreign power to win White House
By Dan Mangan

President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen told a congressional committee on Wednesday that Trump had the potential to cooperate with a foreign power to win the White House.

"Mr. Trump is all about winning," Cohen testified at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"He will do what is necessary," Cohen said, in response to a question from Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who about Trump's potential to cooperate with a foreign government to win the presidency.

Cohen's testimony comes about two months before he is due to surrender to a federal prison to begin a three-year sentence for multiple crimes, including lying to Congress about details of an aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia.

Among other things, Cohen admitted lying about when that deal died; he had told Congress that it was dropped in early 2016, when in fact it continued well into 2016, even as Trump had locked up the Republican nomination for presidency.

The 52-year-old disbarred lawyer since last year has met multiple times with special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is investigating whether Trump or members of his presidential campaign colluded with Russian agents to influence the outcome of the 2016 election that sent Trump to the White House.

Cohen earlier Wednesday testified that Trump had advance knowledge, from admitted Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, that the document-release group WikiLeaks in 2016 would be revealing documents stolen from the Democratic party by Russian agents.

Wasserman Schultz noted to Cohen that she had been chairwoman of the Democratic National Commitee at the time Russian agents hacked into DNC computers and stole that information.

The congresswoman asked Cohen, referring to the news that WikLeaks was going to release the stolen material, if Trump had "cheered that outcome?"

"Yes," Cohen replied.

"Knowing how Mr. Trump operates with his winning at all costs mentality," Wasserman Schultz asked Cohen, "do you believe he would cooperate or collude with a foreign power to win the presidency? Is he capable of that."

Cohen demurred, at first, saying, "It calls for so much speculation."

Wasserman Schultz followed up, asking, "In your opinion and experience, would he have the potential to cooperate or collude with a foreign presidency at all costs?"

"Yes," Cohen answered.

The congresswoman also asked if Trump's adult children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, along with Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, were still involved in an effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow at the time of the WikiLeaks document dump.

"The company [Trump Organization] was involved in the deal, which meant that the family was involved in the deal," Cohen said.

Wasserman Schultz then asked, "If Mr. Trump and his daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr. are involved in the .... Russian Trump Tower deal, is it possible that the whole family is conflicted or compromised with a foreign adversary in the months before the election?"

Again, Cohen replied, "Yes."

Click here to read the original article.