(FreedomBeacon.com)- According to Just the News, one of the biggest hurdles facing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in prosecuting the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels is “star witness,” Michael Cohen.
In answers given to Congress by Cohen’s lawyer in 2019, the former Trump “fixer” claimed that he never asked Trump to pardon him in 2018. However, evidence from New York attorney Robert Costello, who testified before the grand jury last Monday, disputes Cohen’s claim.
In memos written by Costello, the lawyer recounted how Cohen raised the issue of a possible presidential pardon in 2018 and suggested that Costello speak with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to see if a pardon was “on the table.” But Costello writes that he said that discussing a pardon was “premature” since Cohen had not been charged with a crime.
According to Costello’s memos, Cohen also admitted that he didn’t have any useful information about Trump that could be used to cut a deal with prosecutors.
In the 2019 letter to the then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings, Cohen’s lawyer wrote that Cohen “rejected the opportunity” to seek a pardon despite knowing that he would be going to prison. However, in the same letter, the attorney conceded that Cohen did seek to discuss a possible pardon through “his then-attorney.”
On Wednesday, the New York Post reported about a previously unknown 2018 letter from Cohen’s attorney to the Federal Elections Commission that contradicted Cohen’s claims about the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
In a February 8, 2018 letter to the FEC, attorney Stephen Ryan said Cohen paid Daniels from personal funds and neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization was “party to the transaction.” Ryan also asserted that neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization “directly or indirectly” reimbursed Cohen.
However, six months later when Cohen pleaded guilty to several federal crimes, including making an excessive campaign donation to Trump for paying Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about her 2006 affair with Trump, Cohen admitted to creating a shell company to pay Daniels and said he later sought reimbursement from the Trump Organization.
