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Trump's ex attorney Cohen has done multiple interviews with Mueller team

Trump's ex attorney Cohen has done multiple interviews with Mueller team
Posted at 9:45 PM, Sep 20, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-20 21:45:54-04

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former attorney, has spoken with special counsel Robert Mueller's team several times over the past month, ABC News reported Thursday.

Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis appeared to confirm the ABC report later Thursday when he praised his client for speaking to Mueller.

"Good for @michaelcohen212 in providing critical information to the #muellerinvestigation without a cooperation agreement. No one should question his honesty, veracity or loyalty to his #family and #country over @potus @realdonaldtrump," Davis tweeted.

The report said the special counsel team has focused primarily on Trump's dealings with Russia. Investigators were also interested in whether Trump or Trump's associates discussed the possibility of a pardon for Cohen.

ABC said Cohen participated in the interviews without a guarantee of leniency for himself.

Cohen is also cooperating with a probe from New York state into the Trump family charity and the Trump Organization, CNN has reported, and he and his attorney met with state tax department officials last week.

The President's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that if anyone were to believe Cohen, "it's only because they want to get President Trump so badly they have lost any sense of fairness or objectivity."

"Cohen is a professional deceiver," Giuliani said Thursday evening.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, declined to comment, as did the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Cohen pleaded guilty on eight criminal counts last month and implicated Trump personally in campaign finance violations related to the paying of two women who have alleged they had affairs with Trump. The President has denied those allegations.

CNN reported later in August that Cohen was resigned to going to prison to protect his family. The plea deal indicated Cohen could face three to five years in prison.

The reported cooperation of Cohen with the Mueller probe marked the latest instance of a Trump associate being said to work with the investigation the President has regularly railed against as a "witch hunt."

A federal judge said on Wednesday he was setting a sentencing date for Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to investigators and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has also pleaded guilty to several federal crimes and agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation.