WH Denies Trump Told Cohen To Lie: ‘Absolutely Ridiculous,’ ‘Categorically False’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked point-blank on Friday whether President Trump directed his then-attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress and she denied a blockbuster report claiming just that.
“That is absolutely ridiculous,” she said of the BuzzFeed News scoop. “I think that the President’s outside counsel addressed this best and said in a statement earlier today that it’s categorically false.”
When asked about the Wall Street Journal report from Thursday that revealed an IT firm was hired to alter online polls in Trump’s favor, she repeated her previous statement.
“Again, I think that that one statement, those two words sum it up better than anything anybody else can say, that’s categorically false,” she said.
The White House was careful earlier Friday to dance around flat denials of the report, which claim Cohen was told to lie about how long he worked on the development of a Trump Tower Moscow.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders calls BuzzFeed story "categorically false" pic.twitter.com/Pdale1GMQp
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 18, 2019