Michael Cohen testified Wednesday that Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and other members of Trump’s legal team made “several” changes to his false statement to the House Intelligence Committee, including a change to the “length of time that the Trump Tower project stayed and remained alive.” Cohen later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the timeline of Trump’s involvement in the project.
Cohen also said that he discussed his upcoming testimony before the committee with Trump during a meeting that Sekulow attended. “He wanted me to cooperate. He also wanted just to ensure, by making the statement, and I said it in my testimony, there is no Russia, there is no collusion, there is no—there is no deal,” Cohen said, adding that “he’s been saying that to me for many, many months and at the end of the day, I knew exactly what he wanted me to say.” Cohen noted that Trump never directly told him to lie to Congress, but said that he repeatedly emphasized that there was no collusion with Russia. “If you’re asking me whether or not that’s the message that’s staying on point, that’s the party line that he created that so many others are now touting,” Cohen added, “yes, that’s the message that he wanted to reinforce.”
