The man who once derived his identity from making President Trump’s problems go away turned on his former boss in stunning fashion Wednesday, alleging to Congress how the commander in chief manipulated financial records, paid to cover up extramarital affairs and reacted with glee when he learned in advance that the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization would release emails damaging to his political opponent.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal lawyer, cast the president as a mendacious and petty racist who enlisted those around him in a culture of deceit. In testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Cohen revealed how, in his view, Trump broke the law even as president, and he suggested ominously that federal prosecutors in Manhattan remain interested in a case that involves the president.
“Is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding Donald Trump that we haven’t yet discussed today?” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) asked.
“Yes, and again, those are part of the investigation that is currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York,” Cohen responded.
Cohen hinted at possible legal jeopardy for the president — some of his claims were backed by evidence while others will hinge on Cohen’s admittedly poor track record for reliability. Cohen is facing a three-year prison sentence that is scheduled to begin in May, in part for having lied previously to Congress.
There was little response from the White House during Cohen’s testimony. Senior aides traveling with the president in Hanoi did not comment publicly. Instead, it fell to members of Congress to deliver the defense the president has promulgated: that Cohen cannot be trusted on any topic because of his past lies to Congress.
The president’s Republican allies sought to portray Cohen as disgruntled because Trump wouldn’t give him a job in the White House and now hoping to get rich with a possible movie or book deal arising from specious claims.
“You’re a pathological liar. You don’t know truth from falsehood,” said Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), who also jeered the traditional schoolyard chant of “liar, liar pants on fire” at Cohen.
“No one should ever listen to you and give you credibility,” he added.
Cohen came to the hearing loaded for bear, alleging in the opening minutes that Trump knew in advance that WikiLeaks planned in July 2016 to release a batch of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton.
Cohen testified that he overheard a phone call from Trump’s longtime friend and confidante Roger Stone in which Stone, in July 2016, allegedly informed Trump he had spoken by telephone with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and learned that the anti-secrecy group would be publishing a “massive dump” of Clinton emails within days.
Cohen said he could hear the call because Trump had put Stone on speaker phone — a common practice of Trump’s, he said — and estimated that the call took place on July 18 or 19. Prosecutors have said that WikiLeaks confirmed to an online persona operated by Russian military intelligence officers on July 18 that it had received “the 1GB or so archive” of stolen material and would make the documents public that week.”
On July 22, WikiLeaks published thousands of internal emails from the Democratic Party, documents prosecutors have said were provided to the group by Russian operatives.
The allegation, which has never before been aired publicly, goes to the heart of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the election and contradicts repeated claims by both Stone and Trump, who have said they had no advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.
Trump has said, too, that he never discussed WikiLeaks with Stone.
WikiLeaks responded to Cohen’s testimony on Twitter, writing that Assange “never had a telephone call with Roger Stone.” Assange’s lawyer also denied such a call occurred. Likewise, in a text message, Stone said, “Mr. Cohen’s statement is not true.” He has previously told The Post that the two “never discussed WikiLeaks.”
Stone was indicted in January as part of the special counsel investigation, charged with seven counts of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice. The special counsel did not allege that Stone spoke to Assange or that he gave Trump advanced knowledge of WikiLeaks plans. Cohen said he did not remember any other witnesses to the alleged conversations.
Recognizing his credibility would be called into question, Cohen came to the hearing with records he hoped would support his explosive assertions. Most notably, he provided lawmakers with two checks — one dated Aug. 1, 2017, which he said was signed by Trump; the other from March 17, 2017, which he said was signed by Donald Trump Jr. and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
Cohen said the checks — which lawmakers flashed on screen in the committee room — were used to reimbursed him because he had paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged extramarital affair with Trump.
Cohen has claimed he made the payment, and helped arrange a similar one to another woman alleging an affair, at Trump’s direction — and he has admitted that doing so violated campaign finance laws. On Wednesday, Cohen emphasized that the “coverup” of that crime continued when Trump was president, and he alleged that Trump asked him to lie not just publicly about the matter, but to Trump’s wife.
He alleged Trump even once called him and handed the phone to first lady Melania Trump so that Cohen would deny the allegations.
“Not only did I lie to the American people, I lied to the first lady,” Cohen said.
Cohen testified that he spent years fixing or averting problems for Trump — threatening, allegedly at Trump’s direction, the president’s high school, his colleges and the college board if his grades or SAT scores were ever released, and lying even when Trump did not outright tell him to do so.
He said, notably, that Trump did not tell him to lie to Congress about a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow that Cohen pursued into the heart of the campaign — contradicting a BuzzFeed News report that said Cohen had told the special counsel’s office Trump issued such a personal directive. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to misleading lawmakers about the timing of the project — claiming discussions about it ended earlier than they actually did. Had the president ordered him to do so, it would have implicated Trump in a scheme to obstruct justice.
But Cohen said he knew the message Trump wanted to send generally on his dealings with Russia, because Trump had allegedly told him, among other things, “Michael, there’s no collusion, there’s no Russia, there’s no involvement, no interference.” He recalled a May 2017 meeting with Trump and his lawyer, Jay Sekulow, in which the president allegedly said, “it’s all a witch hunt and this stuff has to end.”
Sekulow, Cohen alleged, was involved in editing what would turn out to be Cohen’s false testimony — though his precise role was not immediately clear. At one point, he said, the changes had to do with “the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive,” though later he conceded he would have to look at the document he submitted to describe Sekulow’s precise edits.
The document was shared with Sekulow and Abbe Lowell, the lawyer for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, as part of a joint defense agreement, Cohen said.
“At the end of the day,” Cohen said of Trump, “I knew exactly what he wanted me to say.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cohen-tells-congress-trump-knew-about-wikileaks-plans-directed-hush-money-payments/2019/02/27/f2784a20-3acd-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html
2019-02-27 23:03:45Z
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