Special Edition: Michael Cohen’s Trump Tower Moscow Plea
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2018
⏱️ 70 minutes
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Summary
Thursday saw another plea deal from Michael Cohen: this time with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Cohen pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress regarding how long into the 2016 campaign the Trump Organization sought to build Trump Tower in Moscow and who exactly knew about the efforts. The criminal information validates to a remarkable degree a May 2018 report from Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold of Buzzfeed news, chronicling the details of Michael Cohen and associate Felix Sater’s efforts to cement the real estate deal (you can also listen to a special edition of the Lawfare Podcast on the story here).
Immediately after new of the plea broke, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Cormier, Susan Hennessey and Paul Rosenzweig to discuss the story, the implications of the plea for the Mueller investigation, and who just might have legal exposure and for what.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
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| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:55.6 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast special emergency edition Thursday, November |
| 1:14.0 | 29th, 2018. |
| 1:18.4 | The United States woke this morning to a new plea by Michael Cohen. |
| 1:23.5 | This one not with the Southern District of New York and not about porn stars or payments |
| 1:30.8 | that may or may not violate campaign finance law. |
| 1:34.2 | This one is with special counsel Robert Mueller and it is about Russia and its relationship |
| 1:42.5 | with the Trump organization in the context of President Trump's campaign for President |
| 1:48.4 | of the United States. |
| 1:49.8 | That is, it's about Trump Tower Moscow. |
| 1:52.6 | Remember Trump Tower Moscow? |
| 1:54.7 | That was the building that Felix Sater and Michael Cohen were negotiating to build in |
| 2:01.7 | Moscow during the period of the campaign and that is actually when this was and how involved |
| 2:10.4 | the President was is precisely the subject of this indictment. |
| 2:15.5 | Michael Cohen told both the House and Senate Intelligence committees that he only briefed |
| 2:20.4 | the President a couple times and that the deal was done and ditched for business reasons |
| 2:29.5 | by January of 2016 before the Iowa caucuses and the campaign really even got started. |
| 2:38.6 | He has now pled to that not being the truth. |
... |
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