Although Mr. Trump’s lawyers have long worried that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is trying to catch Mr. Trump in a lie, they said Mr. Cohen’s new account of the Trump Organization’s abortive hotel project in Moscow essentially matches what Mr. Trump himself stated in written answers delivered to prosecutors just nine days ago.
NYT
Of course, in true Trump fashion, when asked about Cohen's plea deal this morning, Trump told reporters that Cohen is just a liar who was trying to get his sentence reduced. So does this mean that, contrary to what he said when they turned in the interrogatories to Mueller, Trump didn't really answer those questions himself? And perhaps had no idea what his attorneys put for responses? Or is that "
essentially matches" phrase a tell? Or was Trump just striking out with whatever suited his purpose in the moment, like he usually does?
Asked how he reconciled the seeming contradiction, Mr. Giuliani blamed Mr. Cohen.
“He has so many different versions of the same stories, so by definition he is a liar and we can’t trust him,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Given the fact that he’s a liar, I can’t tell you what he’s lying about.”
Yeah, not an answer, Rudy If Cohen lied, and Trump's answers coincide with what Cohen said, then Trump's answers are lies. If Trump's answers are the truth, and they coincide with what Cohen said, then Cohen is telling the truth. Which is it? I'm guessing they don't coincide, and Trump's answers are lies. Uh-oh.
“The president said there was a proposal, it was discussed with Cohen, there was a nonbinding letter of intent and it didn’t go beyond that,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who with others negotiated the president’s responses to Mr. Mueller’s questions for nearly a year. He said prosecutors did not raise certain details that Mr. Cohen now says he misled Congress about — including how long the hotel project stayed alive — and that the president did not volunteer those details.
First of all, we know we can't believe a word Giuliani says. And I have no idea that if Mueller asked about the project, he asked about how long the project stayed alive. Trump's lawyers may have obfuscated when asnwering the questions, but they would have had to come up with something, even if it were taking the Fifth, which would have been tantamount to an admission of guilt.
Mr. Giuliani refused to disclose Mr. Mueller’s precise questions to Mr. Trump about the deal or exactly how the president responded. He said only that Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, his company, provided the prosecutors “with every document about this from the beginning,” adding, “That’s the only reason they know about it.”
Rudy is so full of shit. They know about it because both Cohen and business associate/federal snitch Felix Sater gave them details. And I doubt very much that Trump himself - and perhaps not even Trump Organization - was in possession of "every document about this." Cohen was Trump's lawyer at the time. Lawyers often retain pertinent documentation for their clients, along with notes and emails, drafts, and preliminary information that the client wouldn't necessarily have.
Mr. Cohen’s new account of the hotel deal will inevitably be compared not only to the president’s, but also to those of Donald Trump Jr., his eldest son, who testified repeatedly before congressional committees last year about that project and other matters. The complaint states that Mr. Cohen misled Congress about the fact that he had briefed Trump family members about the project. Although the family members were not named, a person familiar with the situation said Mr. Cohen discussed the deal with Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump.
And I'm just sorry Ivanka was never called in to Mueller's office. At least that we know of. Junior, of course, lied about it, with the understanding at the time that his lies matched Cohen's.
[P]eople close to the Trump family said that while emails indicate that both of them were aware of Mr. Cohen’s efforts to get it off the ground in 2015, their involvement appears to end in January 2016.
People close to the Trump family
would say that, wouldn't they?
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Also, "We could make deals in Russia, I just don't want to because I think that would be a conflict." "As a real-estate developer, I have very little debt."
1) He's no longer a real-estate developer, because he simply rents out his name.
2) We know that he owes Deutsche Bank something like $350M. That's not likely the entire sum of his debt.
