personal counsel told him that the President was pleased with the Trump Tower 1004 Moscow statement that had gone out. On October 24 and 25, 2017, Cohen testified before Congress and repeated the false statements he had included in his written statement about Trump Tower 1005 Moscow. Phone records show that Cohen spoke with the President’s 1006 personal counsel immediately after his testimony on both days. 4. The President Sends Messages of Support to Cohen In January 2018, the media reported that Cohen had arranged a $130,000 payment during the campaign to prevent a woman from publicly discussing an 1007 alleged sexual encounter she had with the President before he ran for office. This Office did not investigate Cohen’s campaign-period payments to 1008 women. However, those events, as described here, are potentially relevant to the President’s and his personal Counsel’s interactions with Cohen as a witness who later began to cooperate with the government. On February 13, 2018, Cohen released a statement to news organizations that stated, “In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to [the woman]. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with [the woman], and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or 1009 indirectly.” In congressional testimony on February 27, 2019, Cohen testified that he had discussed what to say about the payment with the President and that the President had directed Cohen to say that the President “was not 1010 knowledgeable . . . of [Cohen’s] actions” in making the payment. On February 19, 2018, the day after the New York Times wrote a detailed story attributing the payment to Cohen and describing Cohen as the President’s “fixer,” Cohen received a text message from the President’s personal counsel 1011 that stated, “Client says thanks for what you do.” On April 9, 2018, FBI agents working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed search warrants on Cohen’s home, 1012 hotel room, and office. That day, the President spoke to reporters and said that he had “just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal