Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
COHEN ASSAILS FORMER BOSS
Casts Trump as racist con man to House committee
— In a damning depiction of Donald Trump, the president’s former lawyer on Wednesday cast him as a racist and a con man who used his inner circle to cover up politically damaging allegations about sex, and lied throughout the 2016 election campaign about his business interests in Russia.
Michael Cohen, who previously pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, told lawmakers that Trump had advance knowledge and embraced news that emails damaging to Hillary ClinWASHINGTON ton would be released during the campaign. But he also said he had no “direct evidence” that Trump or his aides colluded with Russia to get him elected — the primary question of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Cohen, shaking off criticism from Republicans anxious to paint him as a felon and liar, became the first Trump insider to pull back the curtain on a version of the inner workings of Trump’s political and business operations. He likened the president to a “mobster” who demanded blind loyalty from underlings and expected them to lie on his behalf to conceal
information and protect him, even if it meant breaking the law.
“I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,” Cohen declared.
His matter-of-fact testimony about secret payments and lies unfolded as Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, offering stark TV counterprogramming to the president’s official duties.
In testimony that cut to the heart of federal investigations encircling the White House, Cohen said he arranged hush money payments to women on Trump’s behalf and lied about them to the public and the first lady at the president’s behest. He agreed to say Trump was “not knowledgeable” about the transactions even though the president directly reimbursed him, and said he was left with the unmistakable impression Trump wanted him to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate project, even if the president never directly told him so.
In one revelation, Cohen said prosecutors in New York were investigating conversations Trump or his advisers had with him after his office and hotel room were raided by the FBI last April. Cohen said he could not discuss that conversation — the last contact he said he had with the president or anyone acting on his behalf — because it remains under investigation.
The appearance marked the latest step in Cohen’s evolution from legal fixer for the president to a foe who has implicated him in federal campaign finance violations. The hearing proceeded along parallel tracks, with Democrats focusing on allegations against Trump while Republicans sought to undermine Cohen’s credibility and the proceeding itself.
As Republicans blasted him as a convicted liar, a mostly unrattled Cohen sought to blunt the attacks by repeatedly acknowledging his own failings. He called himself a “fool,” warned lawmakers of the perils of blind loyalty to a leader undeserving of it, and pronounced himself ashamed of what he’d done to protect Trump.
“You make mistakes in life, and I’ve owned them, and I’ve taken responsibility for them, and I’m paying a huge price, as is my family,” Cohen said during testimony that spanned roughly seven hours.
The first of six Trump aides charged in the Trump-Russia investigation to testify publicly about crimes committed during the 2016 campaign and in the months that followed, Cohen also delivered biting personal commentary on a president he said never expected to win in the first place.
He recalled how Trump made him threaten schools he attended to not release his grades and SAT scores, mocked his own avoidance of the Vietnam War and denigrated blacks as “too stupid” to vote for him.
“He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election,” Cohen said. “The campaign, for him, was always a marketing opportunity.”
In an allegation relating to Mueller’s probe, Cohen said he overheard Trump confidant Roger Stone telling the candidate in the summer of 2016 that WikiLeaks would dump damaging information about Clinton.
Trump put Stone on speakerphone and Stone told him that he had communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that “within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” according to Cohen.
Trump responded by saying “wouldn’t that be great,” Cohen said.
Cohen also suggested Trump implicitly told him to lie about a Moscow real estate project. Cohen has admitted lying about the project, which he says Trump knew about as Cohen was negotiating with Russia during the campaign. Cohen said Trump did not directly tell him to lie, but “he would look me in the eye and tell me ‘there’s no business in Russia.’ and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing.”
Cohen said that Trump once confided to him that, despite his public explanation of a medical deferment from the Vietnam War, he never had any intention of fighting there.
“You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam,” Cohen quoted Trump as saying.
“I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now,” Cohen said.