Cohen’s bleak but predictable portrayal

Donald Trump was intimately involved in deceptive and criminal schemes to conceal unsavoury personal and business affairs as a candidate for and occupant of the White House, former attorney Michael Cohen told a congressional committee on Wednesday in a bleak if not entirely novel portrait of the president as a lawless charlatan.

He offered a catalogue of dark observations about his former boss, speaking of Trump’s racism, bullying and faithlessness to family and country. But his most relevant and troubling claims tied Trump to the pursuit of a Moscow real estate deal during his campaign, a Kremlin-backed sabotage of his Democratic rival, and an illegal coverup of adultery a year into his presidency.

Cohen is no-one’s idea of an unimpeachable witness, by his own apt admission “a pictureperfect example of what not to do”. To hear him tell it, the greatest of his errors was working for Trump. He accused Trump of encouraging him to deceive Congress about the Moscow venture, albeit in “code’’, and said the then-candidate knew in advance of WikiLeaks’ plan to release Russian-hacked Democratic emails, saying he heard Trump discuss it with the recently indicted Roger Stone.

Cohen’s allegations shouldn’t be regarded uncritically. But given what we already know about Trump and his associates, they shouldn’t be disregarded either.