Former longtime Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen submitted emails to House investigators to corroborate his claim that the president’s legal team dangled a pardon before he agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, CNN reports.
The emails, written by attorney Robert Costello after he said he spoke with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, told Cohen in April of 2018 that he could “sleep well tonight” because he has “friends in high places.”
"I just spoke to Rudy Giuliani and told him I was on your team," Costello wrote to Cohen. "He asked me to tell you that he knows how tough this is on you and your family and he will make (sure) to tell the President. He said thank you for opening this back channel of communication and asked me to keep in touch."
He later followed up to tell Cohen that he had spoken to Giuliani and the discussion was “very, very positive.”
"There was never a doubt and they are in our corner," Costello wrote. "Rudy said this communication channel must be maintained. He called it crucial and noted how reassured they were that they had someone like me whom Rudy has known for so many years in this role."
"Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places," he added.
Costello says Cohen initiated pardon talks:
Costello told CNN that Cohen, who testified to Congress that he did not ask for a pardon from the president, was the one who initiated the pardon discussions.
"Does dangled mean that he (Cohen) raised it and I mentioned it to Giuliani, and Giuliani said the President is not going to discuss pardons with anybody? If that's dangling it, that's dangling it for about 15 seconds," Costello told CNN.
"The first time I kind of danced around the issue because Michael brought it up with me and I told him, 'Look, this is way too premature. ... But if you want me to bring it up, I will bring it up.' And I did,” he added.
Giuliani told CNN that the emails were not about pardons.
"That was about Michael Cohen thinking that the President was mad at him," he said. "I called (Costello) to reassure him that the President was not mad. It wasn't long after the raid and the President felt bad for him."
Cohen attorney says the docs speak for themselves:
“As a general matter from my own past experience, it is impossible to deny or try to spin your way out of what documents say,” Cohen attorney Lanny Davis told CNN. “For example, Michael Cohen in his public testimony did not ask anyone to rely on what he was saying alone. He provided documents that speak for themselves to corroborate what he was saying.”
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where Cohen pleaded guilty to numerous federal crimes, have requested the emails that Cohen provided to Congress.
