--- title: Donald Trump Said He Knows Nothing About Cohen's Business description: President Trump told his lawyers on Tuesday night he didn't know about payments made to his personal attorney. canonical: https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-09T20:00:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:36:49.621Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Told His Lawyers He Knows Nothing About Michael Cohen's Business og:description: "I don't know anything about it." og:url: https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207b6e01b183c646/69892eb3929fad793abf0610/michael-cohen-fifth-amendment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Trump's Personal Lawyer Michael Cohen Appears For Court Hearing Related To FBI Raid On His Hotel Room And Office og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Told His Lawyers He Knows Nothing About Michael Cohen's Business twitter:description: "I don't know anything about it." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207b6e01b183c646/69892eb3929fad793abf0610/michael-cohen-fifth-amendment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Told His Lawyers He Knows Nothing About Michael Cohen's Business > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. May 9, 2018 8:00 PM UTC  President Donald Trump's long-time personal attorney Michael Cohen exits a New York court on April 16, 2018 in New York City. President Donald Trump's long-time personal attorney Michael Cohen exits a New York court on April 16, 2018 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. May 9, 2018 8:00 PM UTC President Trump told his lawyers on Tuesday night he didn’t know about [payments made to his personal attorney](http://time.com/5271000/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-novartis-vekselberg-att/) by a Russian oligarch and businesses lobbying the federal government. After the payments were [revealed by Stormy Daniels’ lawyer](http://time.com/5270422/stormy-daniels-trump-michael-cohen-russian-billionaire-oligarch/), Michael Avenatti, and then largely confirmed by news accounts and the companies themselves, Trump lawyers Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani called the president to ask him about it. “I don’t know anything about it,” Trump told his lawyers, according Guiliani’s recollection of the phone call. Guiliani said Trump’s legal team is confident Special Counsel Robert Mueller doesn’t believe the President had a role in the transactions. “He was good on it,” Guiliani said. “Nobody’s concerned about it. It doesn’t involve us. If it involved us Mueller would have kept it.” Asked if the President directed Cohen to accept payments from companies like Novartis and AT&T, Guiliani said, “I have no idea. I doubt it.” Guiliani believes the news helps Trump’s legal team because it feeds the impression that the investigations are moving far from Russian interference. “They are chasing rainbows,” Guiliani said. “This is yet another irrelevant thing that is made into a big thing.” **Read More:** [_Everything We Know About Michael Cohen’s ‘Essential Consultants’ Business_](http://time.com/5271000/michael-cohen-essential-consultants-novartis-vekselberg-att/) Given that the special counsel’s initial mandate is to investigate Russian collusion with Trump’s campaign, Trump’s legal team will “try to block them from everything they can do which would be far afield from that,” he said. Discussions over whether Trump will agree to be interviewed by Mueller are “right now on hold,” he said. Trump shouldn’t take steps to shut down Mueller investigation, he said, but Mueller himself should bring it to a close “because they don’t really have anything.” Guiliani said he was reluctant to call the President Tuesday night because he didn’t want to take him away from monitoring his Secretary of State’s negotiations over a summit with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the [release of three Americans](http://time.com/5271615/american-detainees-released-north-korea/) from North Korea. Sekulow and Guiliani initially left a message at the White House saying they would like to talk to Trump, but it wasn’t urgent and only if he had free time. Sekulow declined to comment on the phone call. During the call, Trump sounded “exhilarated and happy and satisfied” with what was happening on North Korea, Guiliani said. “Which is a hell of a lot more important than some stupid claim that is probably two-thirds false from this ambulance-chasing lawyer.” _\-With reporting by Tessa Berenson/Washington_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/"},"headline":"Trump Told His Lawyers He Knows Nothing About Michael Cohen's Business","datePublished":"2018-05-09T20:00:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T11:36:49.621Z","description":"\"I don't know anything about it\"","url":"https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/","keywords":["Donald Trump","rudy giuliani","Robert Mueller","michael cohen","stormy daniels"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207b6e01b183c646/69892eb3929fad793abf0610/michael-cohen-fifth-amendment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207b6e01b183c646/69892eb3929fad793abf0610/michael-cohen-fifth-amendment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trump's Personal Lawyer Michael Cohen Appears For Court Hearing Related To FBI Raid On His Hotel Room And Office","caption":"Trump's Personal Lawyer Michael Cohen Appears For Court Hearing Related To FBI Raid On His Hotel Room And Office","creditText":"Spencer Platt/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5271646/donald-trump-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani/","name":"Trump Told His Lawyers He Knows Nothing About Michael Cohen's Business"}}]}] ```