Trump made the claim on Twitter, referring to Cohen’s testimony to Congress in which Cohen said the president lied to the public about business interests in Russia, lied to reporters about stolen Democratic emails and told Cohen to lie about hush payments to cover up sexual misconduct.
Trump wrote: “Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen said under sworn testimony that he never asked for a Pardon. His lawyers totally contradicted him. He lied! Additionally, he directly asked me for a pardon. I said NO. He lied again! He also badly wanted to work at the White House. He lied!”
Cohen quickly responded in a tweet of his own, calling Trump’s assertions “lies.”
Cohen wrote: “Just another set of lies by @POTUS @realdonaldtrump. Mr. President...let me remind you that today is #InternationalWomensDay. You may want use today to apologize for your own #lies and #DirtyDeeds to women like Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford.”
Cohen was referring to two women who claimed to have had affairs with the president and who were paid to keep quiet about them during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The exchange was the latest example of how the potential for pardons — whether hinted at by Trump and his team or sought after by people caught up in the investigations swirling around him — has become a more public flash point.
The question of whether Cohen sought a pardon has been a subject of contention since his testimony last week when he said under oath that he had never sought one.
His current lawyer, Lanny Davis, acknowledged this week that Cohen’s previous lawyer had inquired about a pardon soon after the FBI searched Cohen’s home and office in April 2018. But Davis said that inquiry came about because the president’s team had “dangled” the possibility of one in implicit statements.
Cohen has told associates that the signals from Trump about a pardon date back more than a year, soon after Cohen had publicly disclosed making what he said at the time were unreimbursed payments out of his own pocket in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film star who had claimed to have had an affair with the president a decade earlier.
Cohen has told the associates that last March, before his office and homes were raided, he had dinner with Trump, and that he and the president talked on the phone after the raids in April. After those conversations, Cohen told the associates that he anticipated he would be given a pardon or some form of protection if he would remain silent about having been reimbursed by Trump for making the payments, according to people told of the discussions.
Cohen and Trump were part of a formal agreement in which their lawyers worked together to review documents that the FBI had seized to determine what could be declared off-limits to law enforcement officials because of attorney-client privilege. But that joint effort ended in July 2018 as Trump’s aides balked at paying parts of Cohen’s legal bills.
The exchange between the two men Friday highlighted the stakes for both in establishing whether Cohen was credible in the accusations he has made against the president in his congressional testimony and in providing information to federal prosecutors. Republicans and Trump’s allies have noted that in the testimony he said he had never sought a pardon. At the same time, Trump has often said things that are not true, including statements related to his knowledge of the payments to Daniels.
The questions about the credibility of Cohen’s public testimony stand in contrast with how some prosecutors working with him have described him. A memo to the federal court judge overseeing Cohen’s case in Manhattan from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller said that Cohen had been truthful and provided useful information in connection with their work. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan were more questioning about the timing and motivation for Cohen’s help, but they also have used information he provided that they were able to corroborate.
The volleys between the two men Friday also highlighted the continued questions about Trump’s pardon power and how he might use it as Mueller wraps up his investigation, as other federal prosecutors and Democrats in Congress intensify theirs and expand their scope into the president’s business career.
The New York Times reported in March 2018 that Trump’s previous lead lawyer, John Dowd, had raised the possibility of pardons with lawyers for Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, after they had been charged in cases brought by Mueller’s team.
Trump was asked Friday about the possibility of a pardon for Manafort. Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison Thursday in one of two cases brought against him by Mueller’s prosecutors.
“I haven’t discussed it,” Trump said.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House before leaving on a trip to Alabama and Florida, Trump elaborated in his comments about what he said were Cohen’s discussions about a pardon.
“It was a stone-cold lie,” Trump said about Cohen’s claims that he had never sought a pardon. “And he’s lied about a lot of things, but when he lied about the pardon, that was really a lie.”
Trump continued: “His lawyers said that they went to my lawyers and asked for pardons. And I can go a step above that, but I won’t do it now.”
Trump’s current lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said the president is not focusing on pardons right now because it would not be appropriate — but he has also left open the possibility that the president might invoke that power down the road.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.