On Wednesday CNN obtained a 2018 email to Cohen from attorney Bob Costello, a longtime associate of Trumps current personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The message seemingly hinted that Trump was prepared to use his pardoning power to let Cohen off the hook, at a time when investigators were probing his role in 2016 hush money payouts made to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
Costello wrote to Cohen that he could sleep well tonight because he had friends in high places. CNN said Cohen submitted the email to lawmakers as proof for his claim that Trumps lawyers were "dangling" the promise of a pardon before him,a move congressional Democrats say could constitute an obstruction of justice.
He claimed that he wasnt hinting at the prospect of a presidential pardon, quoting country music megastar Garth Brooks in a bid to reassure a "suicidal" Cohen.
In an email, Costello said: "This statement: Sleep Well tonight, you have friends in high places was a tongue-in-cheek reference to a Garth Brooks song, to a client whose state of mind was highly disturbed and had suggested to us that he was suicidal. We were simply trying to be decent human beings. There is no hidden message."
The 1990 single he was referencing is "Friends in Low Places". It contains the lines "'Cause I've got friends in low places/Where the whiskey drowns/And the beer chases my blues away/And I'll be okay."
Cohens attorney, Lanny Davis, did not immediately return a request for comment. Costello also did not immediately return a request for further comment.
Since Cohens bombshell testimony to Congress earlier in February in which he branded his former boss a racist and conman, Cohen has been attacked by Republicans and the president as a liar for claiming in the testimony that he did not seek a presidential pardon.
Davis has maintained that the prospect of a pardon was dangled before his client by Trumps attorneys to buy his silence.
In a separate statement to CNN last night, Costello who claimed he was exploring the possibility of representing Cohen at the time of the exchange disputed Cohen's account.
"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.
