What did Cohen claim? 

WASHINGTON — One of the major lines of questioning during Michael Cohen’s six hours of testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee focused on his assertion that President Trump’s “personal lawyers reviewed and edited” a false statement he gave to Congress in 2017. Jay Sekulow, who serves as counsel to the president, responded to the testimony with a statement saying Cohen’s claim was not true.

“Today’s testimony by Michael Cohen that attorneys for the president edited or changed his statement to Congress to alter the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations is completely false,” Sekulow said.

Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” was sentenced to three years in prison in December after pleading guilty to what a federal judge described as “a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct,” including lying to Congress about Trump’s efforts to build a skyscraper in Russia. Prosecutors and congressional investigators had obtained extensive documentation showing Cohen pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project through the middle of 2016 and had likely lied to Congress, Yahoo News revealed last May.

In August 2017, Cohen delivered a written statement to the House Intelligence Committee in which he said he gave up on the project in late January 2016, when they determined the “proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further.” During his opening remarks on Wednesday, Cohen apologized and said he was “ashamed” for initially lying to Congress about the skyscraper project. Cohen also provided details about the president’s alleged role in crafting his false statement.

According to Cohen, Trump “did not directly” tell him to lie to Congress. Rather, Cohen said he knew Trump wanted him to downplay the deal because of the president’s repeated false statements in private meetings and on the campaign trail throughout the first half of 2016, when Trump claimed that he did not have business interests in Russia. Cohen also said Trump’s lawyers signed off on the false statement that the Moscow skyscraper project ended in January 2016, which sent a clear signal.

“In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there was no Russian business and then go on to lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie,” Cohen said in his opening remarks on Wednesday.

“You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow tower negotiations before I gave it,” added Cohen.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., questioned Cohen about whether Trump played a role in crafting the statement. Specifically, Connolly noted an email from May 16, 2017, from a special assistant to the president to the deputy White House counsel indicating there was a meeting that week between Trump, Sekulow and Cohen. Connolly read the message, which he said had not been previously made public and was provided to House members by the White House.

“POTUS … requested a meeting on Thursday with Michael Cohen and Jay Sekulow any idea what this might be about?” the special assistant asked in the message.

Connolly asked Cohen if he recalled meeting with Sekulow and Trump at the White House “on or around that time.” While Cohen suggested he couldn’t necessarily remember the date, he confirmed that he was in the White House with Sekulow. Connolly pressed him on whether that meeting was “just before” Cohen testified before the House Intelligence Committee.

“I believe so, yes,” Cohen said.

Connolly then asked Cohen to describe the “nature” of his discussion with Sekulow and Trump.

Cohen said Trump made the kind of statements that made clear the president wanted him to deny dealings in Moscow. “At the end of the day, I knew exactly what he wanted me to say,” Cohen said of the meeting.

Cohen also told Connolly that Sekulow was present because “he was going to be representing Mr. Trump going forward.”

Connolly asked Cohen if Trump attempted to “coach” his congressional testimony during the meeting. While Cohen stressed that Trump doesn’t generally explicitly “tell you what he wants,” he said the president made it abundantly clear he wanted Cohen to downplay the Moscow skyscraper project by making comments like “there’s no Russia, there’s no collusion, there’s no involvement.”