Cohen testified to Congress that he never asked for pardon.
Th GOP seized on that calling Cohen a liar.
Cohen has apparently responded that representatives of the POTUS "dangled" a pardon in front of him, which would be obstruction of justice if true, based on the timing.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/politics/michael-cohen-email-costello/index.html
Pretty thin with denials all around, but
Chen's office is raided
Any attorney for Cohen, connected to the President's lawyer, Guliani, meets with Guiliani after the raid and reprts back to Cohen, in an email:
"sleep well tonight" because he had "friends in high places."
Asked about the alleged dangling pardon, Cohen's lawyer offers a cagey non-denial, denial:
"Does dangled mean that he (Cohen) raised it and I mentioned it to Giuliani, and Giuliani said the President is not going to discuss pardons with anybody? If that's dangling it, that's dangling it for about 15 seconds," said Costello, who has a four-decade long relationship with Giuliani and was exploring potentially representing Cohen. "The first time I kind of danced around the issue because Michael brought it up with me and I told him, 'Look, this is way too premature. ... But if you want me to bring it up, I will bring it up.' And I did."
A source with knowledge of Cohen's thinking at the time disputes Costello's version of events and insists it was Costello who was pushing his relationship with Giuliani. Another source familiar with the emails said that Trump's legal team was trying to keep Cohen in the fold as a way to keep him quiet, hinting that a pardon could be in the mix at some point
Guliani says it wasn't about a pardon:
"That was about Michael Cohen thinking that the President was mad at him," Giuliani told CNN. "I called (Costello) to reassure him that the President was not mad. It wasn't long after the raid and the President felt bad for him."
Lanny Davis is Cohen's attorney and perhaps the only grown up in the group:
Lanny Davis, Cohen's attorney and spokesman, told CNN that he couldn't comment on the matter if it involved documents provided to the intelligence committees. "However, as a general matter from my own past experience, it is impossible to deny or try to spin your way out of what documents say. For example, Michael Cohen in his public testimony did not ask anyone to rely on what he was saying alone. He provided documents that speak for themselves to corroborate what he was saying," Davis said.
The very day after the Guliani/Costello meeting, the president tweeted this:
"Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if...it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don't see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!"
If any of this was true then the President's own tweet could come back to haunt him because he is reaching out to a witness essentially asking him not to flip and reassuring him with praise, which is consistent with Cohen's allegation about the dangling pardon
