own party and what the next steps are. we will bring that to you when she addresses this. so this morning there are also new questions over michael cohen s testimony to congress and whether he lied again. here is the latest version according to lanny davis. at one point michael cohen did direct his attorney to discuss a possible pardon with president trump s legal team. lanny davis also says that does not inlt contradict his testimony to congress last week when he said this. i have never asked for nor would i accept a pardon from president tru trump. can both be true? what are you hearing? lanny davis is trying to make the argument about the timing of that statement. he is saying it is accurate because he is referring to a period after michael cohen s attorneys left what is known as a joint defense agreement, an agreement between trump s attorneys and michael cohen s
we now know he was working as the president of the united states from the oval office while actually making payments to the porn star. as we ve said before, this is not normal. joining us now with new information on the cohen story, cnn chief political analyst gloria borger. so, gloria, what have you been learning about the drafting of michael cohen s original testimony to congress? well, we have sourcing that says, first of all, michael cohen wrote his original testimony himself. it was then edited by his attorney, and then it was shared with other attorneys who were part of this joint defense agreement at the time. and they weighed in, as attorneys will, when you circulate testimony, making tweaks here and there, but the key moment, which was that the trump tower moscow ended in january 2016, which we now know was a lie, remained in remained in his testimony until he perjured himself through congress. and the lawyers had no
attorney and rudy giuliani and michael cohen s attorney and an attorney for the president but it was raised in a cordial way and not as michael cohen wants a pardon, will you give it to him? okay? so when michael cohen was talking about he never asked for a pardon. right. what he may be talking about and what i think lanny davis is talking about is this time line which shifted because once he declared his independence from donald trump in early july of last year, there weren t any conversations. so i think when they had a joint defense agreement, there were some lawyerly conversations about this possibility, but once they split, there were no conversations. does that make any sense? it makes sense but it didn t make sense because when cohen was testifying before congress, he didn t stipulate, he didn t say, well, we talked about it at one point but after i decided i
and whether a pardon was actually on the table. lanny davis, cohen s attorney, said in his statement that cohen was open to the ongoing dangling of a possible pardon by trump representatives privately and in the media. he said he was referring to a period in what s involved in a joint defense agreement where they were all working together. as he turned and left that agreement he never wanted a pardon going forward. according to lanny davis, that s what he was referring to in his public testimony. that s not winning any assurances here on capitol hill where republicans believe he was very untruthful in what he said there and also cohen has told congress, jake, he had conversations with jay sekulo, the president s attorney, about a possible pardon. he is denying that today, jake. and cohen is going to jail, in part, because of his previous lies to congress. manu raj uch, thank you very much. this is the latest in a
to ask the question, was michael cohen lying to his attorneys and did he did he consort with the president to do that? how plausible is it that the president and michael cohen were on one page about trump tower moscow, and their lawyers were on another page? well, you know, the signs seem to be pointing in that direction. i think that from what our reporting is, you know, the lawyers say it s hard to imagine any of them would knowingly, you know, be part of some cover-up here, and that michael had written his testimony, and each of these lawyers were protecting their own particular clients as part of this joint defense agreement. so we now know that michael cohen had multiple conversations with the president of the united states. we re not quite sure when they were. and, you know, you have to sort of ask the question, did he keep these conversations with the president from his attorney? and the answer is probably yes. gloria borger, gloria, stay