but as the new york times points out, quote, that charge conflicts with rudy giuliani s assertion that mr. cohen and mr. trump have now given prosecutors much the same account. giuliani maintains that trump s written answers to the special counsel match what michael cohen told that judge today. cohen s surprise court appearance comes nine days after trump submitted responses to robert mueller. with us to talk about all of it, cynthia auctionny, veteran of the justice department who has worked with robert mueller and bob bauer, former white house counsel to president obama. bob, it s good to have you back on the broadcast after a long absence. i have to start with you with this question. by my account we have in the space of this week seen the president of the united states referred to in court documents twice as individual one. that can t be good, can it? no, of course it s not good.
with all the attention today on michael cohen s plea agreement, let s not forget within the last 48 hours, it was also revealed that the president was, in fact, in regular contact with roger stone over this same period of time stone was acting as an advisor, strategic advisor. and it s now known that stone was working with jerome corsi and others to establish a direct link with wikileaks over the hacked e-mails and their use for purposes of political sabotage. the president, i think, is going to have to answer some questions about what he knew about this activity and what he approved. so, all in all, the last 48 hours i think has individual one in some hot water. cynthia, every time i ask you about your former colleague, mr. mueller, you usually answer with a hint of a smile, as you have right now, that i presume is based in the strength and confidence you have in him.
he can run for president and negotiate a business deal with the russians. at the same time that he s doing that, he can bring the russians potentially and think about how similar this is into a deal about the advantage to him and to that foreign government of his being elected president and seek their assistance for that purpose as well, which is why he also brought in this week s evidence of the connection between the trump campaign and the wikileaks/russian political sabotage with the hacked e-mails. it s all one potential deal in his self-interest, and the constraints that others normally would observe on what they can do officially excuse me, what heck do personally given the responsibility they hold in the public world, i don t think there s any evidence that it makes much of an impression upon him at all. cynthia, back up to something you said. so, the written answers are in from the president. the white house legal team took it as something of a victory that they were able t