President Trump said he had looked only \u201clightly\u201d at constructing a building in Russia. \u201cPut up zero money, zero guarantees and didn\u2019t do the project,\u201d he said.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump woke up in balmy Buenos Aires early Friday, but his mind was back in Washington as he defended his decision to continue pursuing business deals as he ran for president in 2016, including looking \u201clightly\u201d at constructing a building in Russia.
The president\u2019s Twitter defense came a day after his former lawyer Michael D. Cohen admitted in court that he had lied to Congress about the extent of the Trump Organization\u2019s pursuit of an agreement to build a tower in Moscow. Mr. Cohen said that, to help Mr. Trump politically, he had falsely testified that the Russia efforts had been dropped by January 2016, when they had in fact continued until June. By that point, Mr. Trump had clinched the Republican presidential nomination.
The tweets echoed what one of Mr. Trump\u2019s personal lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said a day earlier about the prospective Russia deal. Mr. Giuliani said that Mr. Trump\u2019s written answers to questions posed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, were consistent with what Mr. Cohen said in court on Thursday.
\u201cThe president said there was a proposal, it was discussed with Cohen, there was a nonbinding letter of intent and it didn\u2019t go beyond that,\u201d Mr. Giuliani said on Thursday.
The president\u2019s answers, submitted to the special counsel this month, have not been made public. But Mr. Cohen\u2019s latest version of events raised questions about whether Mr. Trump had been truthful with Mr. Mueller\u2019s team. The president\u2019s veracity with the special counsel has taken on greater import as his team has pursued charges against a string of witnesses for lying to investigators.
At issue is how long into the presidential campaign the Moscow opportunity was under consideration \u2014 at the time, questions were swirling about Mr. Trump\u2019s desire for friendlier ties to Russia. In 2016, Moscow was conducting a clandestine effort aimed at getting Mr. Trump elected, and Mr. Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired in those efforts.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday as he left Washington for an economic summit meeting in Buenos Aires, Mr. Trump said Mr. Cohen was weak and had lied to prosecutors so that he could get a reduced sentence for other crimes he has pleaded guilty to.
The president told reporters he did not know exactly when the Russia discussions had ceased, but he said his recollection was early in 2016.
\u201cWe decided \u2014 I decided ultimately \u2014 not to do it,\u201d Mr. Trump said, adding, \u201cThere would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.\u201d
Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Cohen a liar. \u201cHe has so many different versions of the same stories, so by definition he is a liar and we can\u2019t trust him,\u201d Mr. Giuliani said. \u201cGiven the fact that he\u2019s a liar, I can\u2019t tell you what he\u2019s lying about.\u201d<\/p>\n