Attorney Costello to Newsmax: DA Bragg Cherry-Picked Cohen Emails

Robert Costello, a former legal adviser for Michael Cohen, the onetime lawyer for former President Donald Trump, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg gave the grand jury investigating Trump incomplete evidence by presenting only a fraction of the emails Costello and Cohen had exchanged.

"If you want to get a clear view of exactly what was going on, you need to see everything," Costello said in an interview recorded Tuesday and airing on Newsmax's "Rob Schmitt Tonight" after he testified before a grand jury about Cohen, the star witness in the proceedings investigating Trump in connection with a hush money payment Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

"I asked them during my grand jury proceeding to deliver the entire 321 emails because they are chronological step-by-step, day-by-day communications between Michael Cohen and myself and between myself and my partner, Jeff Citron, about Michael Cohen," said Costello.

But by allowing just six of those emails to be seen, Costello said, "that's less than 2%" of what had transpired.

The emails that were submitted mentioned Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former attorney, but Costello told Schmitt that "when we first started with Michael Cohen at that first meeting at the Regency Hotel, Rudy Giuliani did not represent the president of the United States. That announcement happened two or three days after that, so when we first met with Cohen, Rudy Giuliani really wasn't in the picture."

Costello also said he's known Giuliani for more than 50 years, as he was his student assistant in 1971 in the U.S. attorney's office and Giuliani was a first-year assistant U.S. attorney.

But with the emails, Costello said the prosecution is trying to portray that he is working for Giuliani and Trump, rather than working for Cohen, "which was absolutely not true."

Costello added that Giuliani knows he's trustworthy "just as I know that I can trust Rudy. When he tells me he's going to do something, he does it. We have a long history that way."

Costello said it makes no sense that Bragg is basing his case on Cohen's credibility, as he is a convicted perjurer.

"That is one of the counts he pleaded guilty to," Costello said, adding that the email exchanges between him and Cohen show "probably another 10 lies that Michael Cohen made to us when we were representing him."

"If you look at those emails, you will see that one email contradicts another email," Costello said. "Michael would forget that he took position A one day and position B a second day.

"If you go to the end of the emails, which is really at the tail end of our representation and communication with Michael, you will see four or five emails in which he makes numerous false statements, and I respond and point out exactly why those statements were false."

Costello added that he told Cohen in one email that he couldn't write emails that contain false statements and that he was "going to respond each time even though we thought that nobody would ever see those emails. This was a matter of principle. I would not let Michael Cohen write emails that were false and just sit by and do nothing."

Cohen, in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday while Costello was testifying, said his former attorney has an "allegiance" to Giuliani and Trump, leading him to make false statements.

"Michael Cohen, as usual, doesn't know what he's talking about," said Costello. "This has nothing to do with an allegiance to Rudy. It has nothing to do with an allegiance that Donald Trump. I've never represented Donald Trump. I have never represented any company associated with Donald Trump."

Instead, said Costello, "what it has to do with is something Michael Cohen never recognizes, is the truth."

"I was sitting at home watching the Internet and watching things on TV of Michael Cohen making statements that were absolutely contrary to the statements he made to myself and Jeff Citron," Costello added. "It's not just me. It's two lawyers that were completely the opposite.

"Now, which one of those stories is true? One of them is necessarily false. And Michael Cohen just thinks that he can go on TV, make these false statements, then go on the grand jury, continue those false statements, and get no repercussions."

Cohen is also claiming that he never waived his attorney-client privileges with Costello, but Costello told Schmitt that Cohen "apparently forgot that."

"He went to the DAs office 20 times, by his own admission, and then to the grand jury twice, so that's 22 occasions in which he forgot to mention to the district attorney's office that he waived the attorney-client privilege," said Costello. "The district attorney's office was not aware of that until I told them and then they asked me to send them a copy of it. Which, of course, I did. You're going to trust a guy like that? Strange."