Over the course of his two days of testimony, Michael Cohen has been consistently honest about the falsehoods he told while representing Donald Trump. While testifying before the team assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller, he appeared to have difficulty using the term “lie” when confronted with cross-examination by Todd Blanche.
Blanche kept pressing him to admit whether his misleading statement to Mueller constituted a “lie.” Cohen accused him of being “untruthful” and “inaccurate.” Cohen paused for a long time before answering Blanche’s question about whether he lied.
After much silence, he finally said. “I’ll claim it’s not true.”
Even while Cohen only admitted to lying about his contacts with Trump regarding efforts to build a Trump Tower Moscow, he confessed to Mueller’s team that he lied to them about various issues.
In addition, Blanche questioned Cohen on his recollection of specific details from his conversations regarding the Access Hollywood tape with Trump and Hope Hicks, despite his earlier admission to Mueller’s team that he couldn’t remember such details, which occurred much closer to the time the tape was released.
Disclosure: “I was being deceptive,” commented Cohen. I thought I was being protective, but… My intention was to be faithful.