Lanny Davis Addresses His Backpedaling on Fox News: I Blame Myself, Not CNN

Fox News’ Howard Kurtz confronted Michael Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis this morning about the circumstances of how he came to walk back his initial comments confirming CNN’s Trump Tower report.

Davis publicly came out and said he was incorrect to have helped confirm reporting that Cohen was saying Donald Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time.

Davis told Kurtz today that he respects CNN, explaining, “I was unsure about the issue of the Trump Tower meeting, and I thought that there were other people that could have been in the room, and that it was up to journalists to go look at that.”

Kurtz directly asked him, “Did you ever confirm to CNN reporters this allegation about the Trump Tower meeting off the record?”

“I was never sure in my confirmation,” Davis said. “I was uncertain… I expressed my uncertainty, but not clear enough. So I can understand that they interpreted what I said as a confirmation and have not blamed CNN, I have blamed myself for not being more clear that in my mind, I did not know the details about that meeting and I should not have encouraged any reporter.”

He reiterated, “I thought it was very important not to blame CNN, not to blame anyone other than myself.”

As the discussion continued, Kurtz asked for clarity, “You’re saying now as Michael Cohen’s lawyer that you don’t believe your client had any direct knowledge of the President allegedly supposedly ostensibly knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer. Am I right on that?”

David said this in response:

“I can’t tell you what Mr. Cohen has told me except I can say to you that I’m not sure he did and that it requires additional reporting, and I’m not sure he did not. I know that there’s a lot of fuzzy memories here, there are people in and out of the room with Mr. Trump all the time.”

But, he added, “an assumption is not a fact.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]