cnn update:
On June 13, 2018, Robert Costello emailed Michael Cohen: “Since you jumped off the phone rather abruptly, I did not get a chance to tell you that my friend has communicated to me that he is meeting with his client this evening and he added that if there was anything you wanted to convey you should tell me and my friend will bring it up for discussion this evening.”
The “friend” referred to in the email was Rudy Giuliani, and his client was Trump, Cohen says.“Donald J Trump — President Trump,” Cohen said, correcting himself.
Hoffinger asked Cohen why Costello didn’t just say Giuliani and Trump directly in the email.
“Sort of to be covert, it’s all backchannel.” Cohen added, “I-spy-ish.”
Michael Cohen says one of Robert Costello’s emails used cryptic messaging referencing Costello’s “friend” and his “friend’s client.”
Cohen testifies that this seemed to encourage Cohen to get a message to Trump through Rudy Giuliani.
By his recollection the email referenced, “the potential of pre-pardons, I believe."
“Please remember if you want or need to communicate something, please let me know,” Costello’s email reads.
Cohen says that meant to communicate to Giuliani — and ultimately “President Trump.”
Michael Cohen said Robert Costello “had expressed clearly to Mr. Giuliani that he was on the team.”
“The concern here was that I was going to go to another lawyer and retain another lawyer to represent me in this matter,” Cohen testified.
On June 14, Costello sent Cohen an email with a YouTube link called “Giuliani on possibility of Cohen cooperating Muller probe."
Cohen emailed him back, "Why send this to me?”
Costello responded with a lengthy email. “It seems clear to me that you are under the impression that Trump and Giuliani are trying to discredit you and throw you under the bus to use your phrase. I think you are wrong because you are believing the narrative promoted by the left wing media. They want you to believe what they writing. Many of them are already writing that you are cooperating,” the email began.
Cohen said the email was “part of the pressure campaign that everyone is lying to you, that you are still regarded.”
“The president still supports you,” Cohen added that it meant, "Don’t flip, Don’t speak, Don’t cooperate.”
At some point, Michael Cohen says he had a conversation with his family about “this unique situation.”
“And my family — my wife, my daughter, my son — all said to me, 'Why are you holding on to this loyalty? What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty.”
Cohen says his family told him “that it was about time” he listen to them.
rc: after the meeting with his family cohen decided not to lie anymore.
the defence has an objection, sidebar happening.
there are more objections today than yest…
marchan has sustained the objection, the objection came after this bit, from cnn update:
Michael Cohen says he made his move to plead guilty after talking to his family and deciding he would no longer lie for Trump.
“I made a decision based again on the conversation I had with my family that I would not lie for President Trump anymore,” he says.
Trump, who did not react as Cohen was describing how he would no longer remain loyal, is now chatting with his attorney Emil Bove.