Mark Warner: ‘Not Necessarily a Crime’ Trump Was Working on Trump Tower Deal in Moscow

‘I’ll let lawyers make a determination on that’

CHUCK TODD: And joining me now is the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner of Virginia. Senator Warner, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Thank you, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD: You also interviewed Michael Cohen this week. I think you had him the day before his House testimony.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Nine hours.

CHUCK TODD: Nine hours, fair enough. So — and we had, pretty much, an eight- or nine-hour public hearing. So how was the exchange behind closed doors different than what the public saw on Wednesday?

SEN. MARK WARNER: Well, first of all, let’s realize, this is a guy who is back before us, because he had lied to our Intelligence Committee about the fact that the ongoing negotiations on a tower to be built in Moscow went way beyond what he said and, frankly, what Donald Trump said. And I do think it’s curious that Mr. Trump has spent more than a decade trying to build a building in Moscow, didn’t get much traction. Suddenly, he becomes a candidate for president. And he’s got all kinds of offers on the table.

CHUCK TODD: Is that the only thing he lied about that you know of right now?

SEN. MARK WARNER: Well, again, we’ve got — the three things that are in the public domain, that I think we need further investigation. How long were the negotiations going on for a Trump Tower Moscow? Obviously, beyond January. Did they go beyond even the convention? The president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said they may have gone on through — all the way through the election. I think most voters would have liked to have known that piece of information before they voted. Secondly, this allegation —

CHUCK TODD: Is that a crime, though?

SEN. MARK WARNER: Well, it’s not a — not necessarily a crime. I’ll let lawyers make a determination on that. But it would be, sure as heck, a relevant fact, that a candidate for president was trying to negotiate with a foreign power, Russia, offering the leader of that foreign power, Putin, a $50 million free penthouse. I think most Americans would say that’s a relevant piece of information. The other two pieces of information that I think we need more on, Mr. Trump has said he didn’t know anything about the WikiLeaks dump of information detrimental to Clinton. Mr. Cohen says that he was in the office, when Trump took a call from Julian Assange right, a day or two, before the dump of the information. We need to find out if that’s true or not. And then we also heard testimony that Donald Trump, Jr., at least, indicated to Donald Trump about the infamous-now Trump Tower meeting that included his — the president’s son, the president’s son-in-law, the president’s campaign manager. Again, that meeting was not about Russian adoptions. It was about offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. We need to find out if all those things are true.

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