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Cohen Testifies to Congress: Key Updates
By Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos
Right Now
Michael D. Cohen is answering questions from the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
In one of the most dramatic congressional hearings of recent years, Mr. Cohen, once among President Trump’s most trusted aides and lawyers, pointed the finger at his former boss, accusing him of criminal behavior, dishonesty and racism. Republicans are assailing his credibility, noting that he is going to prison in two months for lying to Congress.
Here are the most important highlights so far:
Mr. Cohen presented life in “Trump world” as a Faustian bargain in which he and others sacrificed their integrity for the “intoxicating” whiff of power.
He compared Mr. Trump to a “mobster” who inflated his net worth, rigged an art auction, paid off women to remain silent about sexual indiscretions, disparaged African-Americans and expected aides to lie on his behalf.
Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he lied under oath to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow, saying he was trying to protect Mr. Trump. “I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,” he said.
Mr. Trump did not “directly tell me to lie to Congress,” Mr. Cohen said, but as a presidential candidate Mr. Trump did “lie to the American people” by denying business in Russia.
Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump was informed during the campaign that stolen Democratic emails would soon be made public. And he said he believes Mr. Trump must have known about a meeting his son had with a Russian lawyer offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Cohen offered a blistering assessment of the president: “He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat.” And he provided documents including a copy of a check he said he was part of reimbursement for hush money payments to cover up Mr. Trump’s alleged affair with a former pornographic film star. [Read his opening statement.]
Mr. Cohen: ‘He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat.’
Mr. Cohen painted a vivid and damning portrait of Mr. Trump as someone who frequently used racist language, lied about his wealth and committed criminal conduct even after he took office.
At the center of that story was Mr. Trump’s role in a scheme hatched in the run-up to the 2016 election to make $130,000 in hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump initiated the plan, for which Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation.
Mr. Cohen said he received 11 checks reimbursing him for the hush payments while Mr. Trump was president “as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws.”
Mr. Trump ‘lied about’ the Moscow project during the campaign.
Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s chairman, released a memo laying out the hearing’s scope last week. Conspicuously absent: Russia and its election interference campaign.
After consulting with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, lawmakers determined that Mr. Cohen would generally not be allowed to publicly discuss matters related to its continuing investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian election manipulation efforts.
But Mr. Cohen did testify that Mr. Trump personally monitored negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, asking about it “at least a half-dozen times” between January and June 2016 while running for president. “Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Mr. Cohen said in his opening statement.
And while Mr. Trump did not explicitly instruct him to lie, through his actions he “made clear to me” that “he wanted me to lie” and the president’s lawyers reviewed Mr. Cohen’s false testimony to Congress about the Moscow project, Mr. Cohen said.
Cohen says he has no evidence of collusion with Russia but does have suspicions
Mr. Cohen said he had no “direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia.” But, he added, “I have my suspicions.”
He pointed to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which Donald Trump Jr., the candidate’s eldest son; Jared Kushner, his son-in-law; and Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman; met with visiting Russians after being told that they had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.
The president has denied knowing about the meeting at the time, but Mr. Cohen cast doubt on that, saying he was in Mr. Trump’s office in June 2016 once when Donald Jr. came in, went behind his father’s desk and, speaking in a low voice, said, “The meeting is all set.” The candidate, he said, replied, “O.K., good. Let me know.”
Mr. Cohen said that might have referred to the Russia meeting because “Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world” and that his son “would never set up any meeting of significance alone and certainly not without checking with his father.”
The paper trail: Mr. Cohen provides documents to incriminate Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cohen provided several documents to the committee in addition to the check. He offered what he said were financial statements that Mr. Trump gave to institutions such as Deutsche Bank from 2011 to 2013 and said the president inflated his assets when it served his purposes and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.
He also gave a copy of an article with Mr. Trump’s handwriting on it reporting about an auction of a portrait of himself that he said the president rigged. Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump arranged for a bidder to buy the portrait at the auction, then reimbursed the bidder from Mr. Trump’s charitable foundation. The picture now hangs in one of Mr. Trump’s country clubs, Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen also offered copies of letters he said he wrote “at Mr. Trump’s direction” threatening his high school, colleges and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.
Republicans call Mr. Cohen’s credibility into question
Republicans on the committee aggressively challenged Mr. Cohen, noting that he had already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and therefore could not be trusted. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican, called Mr. Cohen a “fraudster, cheat, convicted felon and, in two months, a federal inmate.”
Mr. Jordan suggested that Mr. Cohen’s appearance was orchestrated by his attorney, Lanny J. Davis, a longtime friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as part of a broader Democratic scheme to tarnish Mr. Trump. He questioned Mr. Cohen’s motives in assailing Mr. Trump’s character and actions, suggesting that Mr. Cohen was embittered because the new president did not bring him to Washington.
“You wanted to work in the White House — ” Mr. Jordan said.
“No, sir,” Mr. Cohen replied.
“ — and didn’t get brought to the dance.”
“I did not want to go to the White House,” Mr. Cohen asserted.
Eric Trump, another of the president’s sons, took issue with that on Twitter. “Michael was lobbying EVERYONE to be ‘Chief of Staff,’” he wrote. “It was the biggest joke in the campaign and around the office. Did he just perjure himself again?”
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last four presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. He also is the author of five books, most recently “Impeachment: An American History.” @peterbakernyt • Facebook
Nicholas Fandos is a reporter in the Washington bureau covering Congress. @npfandos
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/politics/cohen-live-testimony.html
2019-02-27 17:02:45Z
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