counsel is weighing in. eeven though they say he did initially get false answers when asked about the mocko/trump tower project. and he admitted he was pursuing meeting longer than he proposed. they said cohen provided substantial information including his own contact with with russian interest during the 2016 campaign and attempts dating back to 2015 of russian nationals to reach. squo mueller s office gave him the information to matters core to the tret. but it is clear that michael cohen has given him a lot of information that we have yet to see when the probe.
question about meddling because the russians had to be involved in approving this trump tower project and it would have been a financial boom for the president, had it been pursued. michael cohen recommended a substantial prison sentence after he actually asked for no prison time. he s charged with financial crimes including tax fraud. he s charged with campaign finance violations tied to the payments to the women and charged with lying to congress about the trump tower moscow project. we ll see how that shakes out next month when cohen is sentenced. jeremy herb, thank you. president trump is declaring victory in all of this. the president tweeting this morning, aft two years and millions of pages of documents, no collusion. our white house correspondent boris sanchez joining us now with more on the president s sentiments here, boris.
we also learned about new contacts that mr. cohen had with russians in the early stages of the campaign, including one russian that claimed ties to moscow and said that he would offer political synergy to the trump campaign. those conversations were taking place as part of mr. cohen s work on the trump tower moscow project in 2015 and into 2016. what the mueller filing did is connected that business work to the question of russian election meddling, saying trump had substantial business interest to gain from the trump tower project and that discussions about it were going on at the same time that russia was actively meddling in the campaign. mr. cohen was the prosecutor said he should receive substantial sentence after his attorneys asked for no jail time. he is charged with crimes including tax fraud, campaign finance violations that are tied to the payments to women and lying to congress about the trump tower moscow project.
cohen pleaded guilty to the charges and is due to be sentenced, and this reveals a harsh 42 months behind bars and impose a substantial term of imprisonment a modest variance from the applicable guidelines range. and the other court filing deals with robert mueller s russia investigation and the headline here is in november, 2015, cohen talked with a return shun national who offered political synergy with the trump campaign. this all went down just two months after president trump announced his bid for the white house. it also says cohen lied to congress about how involved he was in a deal to create trump tower moscow. it reads the defendant s false statements obscured the fact that the moscow project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought and likely required the assistance of the russian government. if the project was completed, the company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources in licensing fees and other
revenues. the special counsel says all this matters because the business talks were happening at the same time that russia was interfering in the election and thereby, we re learning how the trump tower project is connected to the special counsel s probe. certainly a lot to unpack here, kristin. kristin: thank you. despite everything that president trump or that she laid out, trump is saying that the court filings totally clears him. but the democrats say he s just been implicated in two felonies. breaking it down for us ellison barber at the white house. the white house released two statements yesterday down playing the significance of the memos. white house press secretary sara sanders says that it says nothing about the president and less about collusion and devoted almost entirely to lobbying related issues. on mr. cohen, sanders says the filing tells us nothing of value that wasn t already known.