Trump asked Cohen to lie to Congress over Moscow project? Report takes US by storm

Washington, Jan 22: US President Donald Trump had asked his long-time attorney Michael Cohen to lie to the Congress over negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, BuzzFeed News reported recently citing two federal law enforcement officials involved in a probe into the matter which has taken the country by storm.

The report added that Trump had also backed a plan made by Cohen to visit Russia during the campaign for the 2016 presidential election to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in person and jump-start the negotiations for the tower. "Make it happen," the sources said Trump told Cohen," BuzzFeed News reported.

"And even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project," the report added.

However, Peter Carr, a spokesperson for special counsel Robert Mueller's office said that BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and characterisation of documents and testimony received by the office regarding Cohen's Congressional testimony was not correct.

According to a report in the Washington Post, when a BuzzFeed reporter first sought remark in the explosive report that Trump had asked Cohen to lie to the Congress, Carr treated the request as he did with any other story.

"The reporter informed Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, that he and a colleague had "a story coming stating that Michael Cohen was directed by President Trump himself to lie to Congress about his negotiations related to the Trump Moscow project," according to copies of their emails provided by a BuzzFeed spokesman. Importantly, the reporter made no reference to the special counsel's office specifically or evidence that Mueller's investigators had uncovered," the Post reported.

Trump said on Saturday that the BuzzFeed piece was a "disgrace" to the US as well as journalism.