(PartiallyPolitics.com) – On Wednesday, Michael Cohen’s former lawyer testified before the House Weaponization Committee that Cohen asserted the former President wasn’t involved with the $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Robert Costello, who advised Cohen when the former Trump attorney faced federal charges in 2018, explained that Cohen revealed he had taken care of the arrangement with Daniels himself.
Costello’s revelation comes a day after Cohen concluded testimony against Trump in a Manhattan courtroom.
The former Cohen attorney, who also served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, noted he could discuss the details of his interaction with Cohen because he had “waived the attorney-client privilege.”
Costello had also testified before the Manhattan grand jury before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg proceeded to indict Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Cohen’s former attorney recalled an exchange he had with Cohen in 2018, during a period when Cohen was “suicidal” and searching for “an escape route” following his indictment.
Costello testified that he shared with Cohen that since he wasn’t the “target of the investigation,” he could get him out of legal trouble by week’s end if he “cooperated against Donald Trump.”
Costello added that he stressed to Cohen that to escape legal trouble, the information he provided against Trump would need to be “truthful,” something he explained he repeated multiple times during the pair’s meeting.
He added that each time he said this Cohen rebutted by swearing he didn’t have “anything on… Trump,” claiming Trump’s former attorney said that “at least ten times.”
Costello went on to explain that during the conversation, Cohen had repeated he would do anything to avoid going to prison and was “seriously contemplating” jumping from the roof of the 21-storey New York City Regency Hotel.
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