US President Donald J. Trump walks into a meeting room at the Presidential Palace to meet with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, Vietnam 27 February 2019, ahead of the second summit between US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Luong Thai Linh/Pool via Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that his former lawyer Michael Cohen was lying in order to reduce his prison time.

Cohen plans to testify later on Wednesday that Trump knew ahead of time about a leak of emails that would hurt his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen will also say that Trump directed negotiations for a real estate project in Moscow even as he campaigned for the presidency and publicly stated he had no business interests in Russia, according to a draft of Cohen’s planned testimony.