Ivanka Trump's Lawyer Tried To Change Michael Cohen's 2017 Testimony

Back in 2017, Ivanka Trump's lawyer allegedly suggested changes to Michael Cohen's statements to Congress in order to distance the first daughter from the deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to emails reviewed by Vanity Fair.

Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney and a convicted felon, said during an explosive congressional testimony last month that Trump's attorneys had edited his remarks on the controversial Russian real-estate deal, which he provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee in August 2017. Afterward, the House Intelligence Committee requested proof of the communications. According to the exchange reviewed by Vanity Fair, Cohen's attorney said Ivanka's lawyer Abbe Lowell asked for them "to affirmatively address" during Cohen's 2017 testimony that "[Ivanka] was not involved in the backs and forths with FS [Felix Sater] and MC [Michael Cohen]." It continues: "She was not in any meetings or calls with people putting it together."

Ivanka has denied knowing about the Moscow project and the negotiations process. But a memo by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which detailed Cohen's cooperation, said that the longterm Trump fixer had “briefed [the] family members” of President Trump about the Moscow deal. The building would allegedly include a "Spa by Ivanka Trump," for which the first daughter would reportedly have the power to approve "all [its] interior design elements." Those decisions would fall within Ivanka's scope, who at the time was the Trump Organization's executive vice president of development and acquisition. In 2015, she both forwarded Cohen information about potentially arranging a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and her father to discuss real-estate opportunities and emailed him a suggestion for an architect who could work on the Moscow project.

Last year, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes that ranged from campaign finance violations to tax evasion. He later pleaded guilty to having lied to Congress in the past. When he appeared before lawmakers again last month, he said President Trump had lied and encouraged him to do the same. "He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project," he told lawmakers. "And so I lied about it, too, because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie."

It's unclear what impact the email exchanges unearthed by Vanity Fair will have. House Democrats have largely avoided involving Ivanka in the multiple line of inquiries they're pursuing to investigate possible wrongdoing by the president, although they have not completely left her off the hook and are investigating her use of personal email for government matters, as well as Jared Kushner's use of WhatsApp to conduct his business.

"We’re fully committed to getting to the truth and to ensuring that everything is transparent and accountable," Rep. Katie Hill from California, a member of the House Oversight Committee, told Refinery29 of the several investigations involving the president and his associates. "But I don’t think a full plan has been laid out yet. I think we’re having some planning meetings in the coming days and then we’ll know more."

Meanwhile, the Trump clan has been celebrating the results of the Mueller report, which according to Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary did not establish collusion between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Democrats are demanding that the entire 300-page report is released to the public. On Sunday, Ivanka posted on Twitter: "Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. — Abraham Lincoln"