Trump’s ‘a racist, a con man, a cheat’
Cohen delivers scathing indictment of president
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer told Congress on Wednesday that Trump is a repeat criminal.
Seeking a measure of “redemption” before he serves a three-year prison sentence for crimes that include lying to Congress, a subdued and selfflagellating Michael Cohen testified under oath that Trump is guilty of multiple criminal offences and of moral transgressions including racism.
“I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat,” Cohen said.
Never before had someone from Trump’s recent inner circle delivered such a scathing or specific public indictment. Cohen’s extraordinary testimony, delivered as Trump was in Vietnam for a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, gave Democrats new avenues for investigation and the voting public new questions about the president’s behaviour and character.
Cohen said Trump submitted false financial documents to a bank and to insurance companies. As he did in court, Cohen said Trump directed him to make a criminal $130,000 hushmoney payment to porn performer Stormy Daniels, who claims Trump had sex with her while married.
Cohen said Trump used charity money for personal purposes. He suggested Trump probably lied under oath about his familiarity with a Russian with a shady past. He said Trump inflated his wealth for ego purposes and deflated his assets for tax purposes. And he said Trump implicitly instructed him to give his false congressional testimony, though he said that Trump never issued an explicit order.
He also said federal prosecutors in New York were looking into additional wrongdoing he could not discuss.
Cohen was greeted receptively by the Democrats who control the House oversight committee and belligerently by a Republican minority that sought to impugn his credibility — the way Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, had once attempted to undermine people who accused the president of wrongdoing.
Cohen maintained his calm under Republican questioning, admitting freely to his own transgressions but dismissing the suggestion that they invalidated his expertise on Trump.
“You’ve met him for a short period of time. I’ve been with him for over a decade,” he told one Republican who challenged his characterization of the president.
Cohen also claimed Wednesday that Trump’s other lawyers reviewed “and edited” his previous statement to Congress, which included a false claim about when he ceased discussions about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow. (One of the lawyers Cohen named, Jay Sekulow, denied the editing allegation.)
And Cohen made new allegations about Trump’s connection to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Cohen said Trump knew days in advance about WikiLeaks’s plans to release hacked emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Trump reacted with enthusiasm, Cohen said, when associate Roger Stone, who now faces charges himself, let him know the release was coming.
Cohen said he heard Stone’s call with Trump over Trump’s speakerphone. Stone told reporters that Cohen’s claim was not true; he did not elaborate. WikiLeaks said founder Julian Assange never had a phone call with Stone; Cohen claimed Stone told Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Assange.
Republicans made an aggressive effort to portray Cohen as unreliable and unethical. Almost all of them used their questions to try to malign him rather than to elicit information about Trump’s actions.
Ignoring Trump’s extensive history of lying, they pointed out that Cohen is a convicted liar.
They suggested he was telling tall tales for the purpose of securing a lucrative book or movie deal, that he turned on Trump because he was denied the White House job he wanted, and that he might be in cahoots with Democrats.
“They just want to use you, Mr. Cohen. You’re their patsy today. They’ve gotta find somebody, somewhere, to say some thing, so they can try to remove the president from office. ‘Cause Tom Steyer told them to,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, referring to a Democratic billionaire who advocates Trump’s impeachment.
Cohen warned the Republicans that he used to do “the same thing that you’re doing now,” defending Trump until his loyalty caused his ruin.
“And I can only warn people: The more people that follow Mr. Trump — as I did blindly — are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” he said.
Cohen concluded with a broad denunciation of the man he served for a decade, widening his criticism to include Trump’s immigration policy and attacks on the media. He said he worried Trump would not allow a “peaceful transition of power” if he lost in 2020.
Cohen’s testimony was not all bad for Trump. Cohen denied again that he has ever been to the Czech Republic and said he does not think there is a lewd tape of Trump with Russian prostitutes, rejecting two key allegations in an ex-spy’s research dossier. The dossier included an allegation that Cohen went to Prague during the campaign for the purpose of collusion.