August 22, 2018

Cohen Ready to Tell Mueller Potentially Explosive Info on Trump, Would Not Accept Pardon

“There is no dispute that Donald Trump committed a crime,” Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said.

Lanny Davis, the lawyer representing Michael Cohen, said that his client would “never accept” a pardon from President Donald Trump, telling NPR in an interview Wednesday that Cohen considers the president to be “both corrupt and a dangerous person” in the White House.

“He has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon,” Davis said before referencing the president’s controversial decision to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio last year.

Davis on Wednesday also repeated his claim that Cohen possesses information “of interest” to special counsel Robert Mueller and the ongoing Russia investigation. The remarks came hours after Davis told Rachel Maddow that Cohen is willing to provide investigators potentially explosive information regarding Trump’s knowledge of the infamous 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, along with details on the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Cohen on Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight counts of federal crimes and implicated Trump, a man he once claimed he’d “take a bullet” for, in a criminal conspiracy to prevent women from publicly speaking about alleged affairs they had had with the president.

Davis’ media blitz continued through Wednesday morning, as he appeared on Morning Joe, New Day, and The Today Show, where he also promoted a new GoFundMe page to help pay for Cohen’s mounting legal troubles. As of this writing, the “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” has raised $16,692 of its $500,000 goal.

Listen to Mother Jones DC bureau chief David Corn discuss the consequences of the Paul Manafort conviction and Michael Cohen guilty plea on this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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