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.
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.
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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