Lanny Davis Backs Off Previous Claims Trump Knew About Russian Hacking
Davis: “I was giving an instinct that he might have something to say of interest to the special counsel” about Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign.
Last Thursday, Lanny Davis, the lawyer for President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Cohen was present at a meeting where Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. discussed the Trump Tower meeting.
A few hours later, Davis contradicted himself while talking to Anderson Cooper and insisted that Cohen doesn’t have information that Trump knew about the meeting before or after it happened.
Davis now finds himself in another contradictory situation. He told reporters last week that Cohen’s “knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.” Davis once again has changed his story.
Cohen Said Trump Knew About Russian Hacking
Last week, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, which include the following: 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. This led to numerous interviews with Davis in the days after.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Davis claimed Cohen had useful information for special counsel Robert Mueller. From The Daily Caller:
“I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows,” Davis told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
“Not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election — which the Trump Tower meeting was all about — but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”
“We know that he publicly cheered it on. Did he also have private information?” Davis continued.
Davis repeated these claims on other programs:
In his interview with The Post, Davis also hedged on an idea he widely promoted after Cohen’s guilty plea: that the longtime Trump loyalist had information that Trump knew of the Russian hacking of Democratic emails ahead of time.
Davis floated that idea in numerous broadcast interviews in recent days, repeatedly touting his client’s potential value to Mueller.
“I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests — I’m not sure it proves — that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton,” Davis told PBS’s “NewsHour” on Wednesday.
Davis Changes His Mind
On Saturday, Davis told The Washington Post “that he is no longer certain about claims he made to reporters on background and on the record in recent weeks about what Cohen knows about Trump’s awareness of the Russian efforts.” WaPo continued:
But asked Saturday how confident he was that Trump knew about the hacking before it became public, Davis said: “I am not sure. There’s a possibility that is the case. But I am not sure.”
Davis said that in discussing the hacking allegations last week, he should have emphasized his lack of certainty. He said he raised the idea that Cohen might have information about Trump’s knowledge because he had a strong feeling that might be the case.
“I was giving an instinct that he might have something to say of interest to the special counsel” about hacking, Davis said. In retrospect, he said, “I am just not sure.”
Make up your mind, Davis. Did Cohen attend a discussion about the Trump Tower meeting with Trump and his son? Does Cohen know anything about Trump’s knowledge of Russian hacking?
I don’t know what to believe from either side and have grown tired of it all.
Whenever Trump’s new attorney Rudy Giuliani has a flip-flop, the media is all over it and journalists and talking heads blab about it constantly on Twitter.
But when Davis backs off from his claims, I the silence from critics is almost deafening.
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Comments
It’s the seriousness of the allegation, not the truthfulness of it, that determines how much news coverage it gets.
What to believe? This is an investigation of a person looking for a crime. This is NOT an investigation of a crime looking for the person who committed it. The old Soviet Union knew how it was done.
Lanny is trying to stay in the swamp but not get caught in a lie. He may not be able to pull that off since this entire “Russian Collusion” narrative is a lie unless you are talking about HRC where there is apparently no investigation.
As a juror, I can now completely ignore everything Lanny Davis has to say.
The Washington Post noted his change of mind at page 19.
I sympathize with Mr. Davis.
On the one hand, he wants to implicate Trump as much as possible. On the other hand, he cannot implicate his client in the process. Then, there’s also the truth which has a way of coming out when a thousand people are scrutinizing a case.
Finally, there are laws against libel, slander, and perjury.
That’s quite a tightrope to walk.
I suspect that Lanny and Cohen did a lot of doubletalking to get a sweet deal from the Prosecutors on the charges. It wouldn’t be the first time for that to happen, especially if the prosecutors are overeager and completely focused on a different target. A smart prosecutor will get everything in writing and under oath before cutting a deal – but a sloppy and incompetent prosecutor can forget that part.
And how Lanny and Cohen could get away with it – suppose Lanny told the prosecutor, “oh yeah I am sure my client knows about that and will help you.” But now says “oh yeah I was sure at the time I told you that, absolutely I was sure, but now we’ve looked at things a second time, and I’m not saying I was wrong, but maybe I’m not so sure anymore, I don’t really know.”
Imagine a witness at a trial saying “oh yeah, I told the cops he was guilty, and that’s what I absolutely thought at the time, but now I’m not really so sure and I thought I had some proof but I can’t find it, it musta got lost. So I dunno, whatever.”
Remember the George Costanza Defense – it’s Not a Lie if you believed it at the time you said it.
I can’t help but wonder just what kind of conditions Cohen’s plea was made under, i.e. did the prosecutor threaten to pull the plea and charge him with the original crimes if Cohen did not verbally keep up a constant ‘mea culpa, mea maxima culpa’ on TV until this is all over?
I sense we have less ‘singing’ and more ‘composing’ in this plea.
No sweat, no work for Davis or Cohen (OK, Cohen sweated until the deal was done). The AUSA wrote out what Cohen needed to agree to take the plea to, Davis told Cohen that if he would just say the campaign related stuff the way the script showed, he’d only get 3 to 6 years instead of 65. It wasn’t difficult at all.
The shorter version – Davis: “I was
giving an instinct that he might have something to say of interest to the special counsel” about Russian hacking during the 2016 campaignlying.To call this guy a scumbag would be an insult to scumbags everywhere. If that’s even possible.
Leftists lie, steal,cheat and kill (that’s the communist manifesto talking). So no surprise here.
In the GOPe’s case, it’s lie steal and cheat. (They’re too scared to kill.)
I think I saw Lanny’s lips moving. Therefore, it is obvious that he was lying.
I don’t know what to believe from either side
That’s an easy one. There’s not the slightest excuse for believing a word about it from anyone.
Still waiting for evidence. Even a shred. Not so much evidence of who-did-what, who-knew-what, who-said-what, but actual evidence that any Russians did anything even the least bit interesting. That might actually be important.
As soon as Cohen had his records taken, and turned on his client, is this really any surprise? Cohen had said a few times that Trump knew nothing of the meeting. Davis intimated that he did, then walked it back with some double talk.
How do you trust Cohen when he is placed in a similar situation as Flynn, where legal fees are going cripple them (I recall Cohen even saying he thought Trump should pay his legal fees). The Herr Mueller tactics are not ethical, they are designed to put so much pressure on that people will “flip”. Trouble is, flipping when there is nothing to really reveal means they have to make things up to satisfy the gestapo or stasi like tactics being used against them. Cohen is weak, as is typical with those who bully when they are in the position of power. I imagine Herr Mueller would fold easily if he were placed on the hot seat like this.
The other issue is: so what if Trump knew about the meeting, even in a general way? It was a meeting set up, most likely, as a trap, and given that it was short, it seems to bear out that it was figured out pretty quickly that it was a nothing meeting.
What needs to be asked of Herr Mueller is what is being done with Hillary’s campaign which looks more likely to have had collusion with the Russians, given the sources of the phony Steele dossier? Herr Mueller’s task was to look into the Russian interference in the election, and to see if there was collusion involved, that is open ended, meaning it isn’t limited to investigations of Trump and his campaign, but also of Hillary’s and any of the others who were running, including Bernie given his political leanings.
The media is building up a frenzy for impeachment, yet there isn’t a crime for which to do so.
Shouldn’t Herr Mueller’s investigation also be looking at the highly questionable, if not illegal, use of the FISA warrant, pushed through by the Comey FBI, Strzok, Rosenstein and even Brennan? After all that is interference in the election, and could stem from the Uranium One deal, which was a collusion between the US and Russia after payments to Hillary and Bubba, and most likely many named above, and includes Obama.
But, the 10 minute meeting, which wasn’t a crime, and amounted to nothing, and contained no agreements, yeah, that is what will bring down Trump. Sheesh.
That one’s easy. If he knew about the meeting then he lied when he denied knowing about it. That’s all. No crime would have been committed. Taking the meeting was neither illegal, nor immoral, nor even fattening; certainly approving it was none of those things. So the only question is whether he lied to the public, and I can’t be the only person who doesn’t care about that. I didn’t care when Clinton lied to the public and I don’t care when Trump does it, and I’m sure many people feel the same way.
Actually Cohen isn’t is a similar position to Flynn. They have
Cohen on multiple tax evasion charges and, IIRC, bank fraud too. That is significantly more than a single False Statements charge. And a sigle charge where the Bureau SAs interviewing Flynn apparently didn’t believe he made any false statements but Flynn couldn’t afford to defend himself any longer (and or scuttlebutt has it they had something on his son).
single dang it.
Cohen’s goal was to duck charges which would keep him in prisons for a couple of decades. Davis was there to make sure that the faux campaign finance accusations stayed alive.
Look, the faux Russia-Trump Collusion narrative was falling apart as early as October 2017. But, the anti-Trump forces tried to keep it alive anyway. The obstruction of justice narrative never really got off the ground, because it was total horses**t. It is evident that the public does not care if trump had an affair with anyone, so that scandal is only useful for attempting to advance a faux campaign finance violation accusation. That was Lanny’s job. To get Cohen to
admit” to committing a campaign finance violation and then attempt to tie that Trump. It is just anther gossamer string to the “Get Trump” bow. Just more lies.
Perhaps he saw what happened to Cohen, and figured something like that (e.g., perjury trap) just might happen to him as well?
People with power who want things from you are not always nice about how they go about getting what they want, are they? I think he has reason to be careful about what he says, and I expect he thinks so as well.
Political hacks commit political hackery.
He is a public relations guy and should not be making legal arguments.
Look… these two things are not the same:
“Cohen Said Trump Knew About Russian Hacking” and
“I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows,” Davis told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Yes, he made certain we all thought we heard him saying Cohen said Trump knew about Russian hacking, but that’s not, actually, what Davis said.
This is why I said nothing about Davis’ words. I could smell the wiggle room a mile away.
“I don’t know what to believe from either side and have grown tired of it all.”
I can help you figure out what to believe from the other side.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. They always lie.
Lanny Davis has been a faithful member of the Clintons’ Janitorial Service for 30 years perpetually cleaning up their messes. As such, he is a reliable liar and scumbag who will say anything to white wash a mess.
That Lanny Davis is representing Cohen only calls into question the sanity of Cohen for putting himself into the hands of a known Clinton Operative; I bet Lanny is in touch with the Clintons and Mueller more than once each day to identify how to use Cohen to get at President Trump without any evidence of wrong doing. He’s obviously stupid.
Lanny Davis was a first string liar for G. Gordon Liddy years ago during the Klinton crime spree. He lied then and you know people like that rarely stop.