Cohen: Trump ‘was telling me to lie’
Fireworks fly from both sides in day of blistering testimony
WASHINGTON – Michael Cohen, the man tasked with keeping Donald Trump’s deepest secrets, offered Congress a damning portrait of his former boss on Wednesday, saying the president encouraged him to lie to Congress and the public for Trump’s protection.
During an often combative appearance before a House committee, Cohen delivered a searing account of his dealings with the man who he helped win the White House, casting Trump as a “racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat” and tying the White House more directly than ever to criminal investigations that have shadowed Trump’s presidency.
And when his own credibility was directly and frequently challenged as a recently convicted felon who lied to Congress two years ago about his own dealings on behalf of the president, Cohen countered that he had served Trump and his business for a decade and that few people are in a better position to
offer insights about his former boss and the organization he built.
“He doesn’t give orders,” Cohen told the committee. “He speaks in a code.”
In more than six hours of sworn testimony, Cohen asserted that Trump knew WikiLeaks planned to release stolen emails that were damaging to political rival Hillary Clinton. “Wouldn’t that be great,” he said Trump replied when informed of the prospect during the 2016 campaign.
Cohen told the panel that Trump helped engineer and personally reimbursed Cohen for an illegal hush-money payment to a porn star, then told him to lie about the arrangement. And he said the president indirectly encouraged him to lie to Congress about his pursuit of a potentially lucrative Trump Tower development in Moscow, even as Trump repeatedly denied any business interests in Russia throughout the 2016 campaign.
“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress,” Cohen said. “That’s not how he operates. 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. In his way he was telling me to lie about it.”
The disclosures went on as Cohen suggested that Trump knew in advance of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, headed by Donald Trump Jr., in which a Russian lawyer promised to provide damaging information on Clinton. “I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: ‘The meeting is all set.’ I remember Mr. Trump, saying, ‘OK, good. ... Let me know.”
Cohen, however, could not pinpoint when he saw the interaction between father and son. Nor did he elaborate on whether the two could have been referring to another unrelated meeting.
The series of events described by Cohen, who is set to begin a three-year prison term for pleading guilty to a string of financial crimes and lying to Congress, are at the heart of several criminal investigations, including Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And he disclosed that he remains in “constant contact” with federal prosecutors from Manhattan who are in the midst of a wide-ranging review that includes the Trump Organization.
He acknowledged that he hoped his cooperation could lead to a reduced prison term.
“I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty – of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him,” Cohen said. “I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat.”
Cohen acknowledged his past criminal conduct and said his testimony represented a clean break from Trump, whose actions Cohen described as akin to those of a Mob boss.
“I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your fixer, Mr. Trump,” Cohen said, adding that he would not seek or accept a pardon should one be offered by the president.
Cohen arrived at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday with documents that appeared to back up some of his claims, including a $35,000 check signed by Trump. Cohen said the personal check, signed during the first year of his presidency, was one of 11 “installment” payments to reimburse him for the hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump.
But Cohen’s testimony went beyond Trump’s business and campaign dealings to describe him as “a racist.” Publicly, Cohen said, Trump courted white supremacists and bigots.
“In private, he was even worse,” Cohen said. “While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. And he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”
Trump’s defenders were ready for fireworks.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the panel’s ranking Republican, seized on Cohen’s past false statements.
“Here we go,” Jordan told the packed gallery. “This might be the first time someone convicted of lying to Congress has been brought back” to testify so quickly.
“We are legitimizing dishonesty,” Jordan said. “We are de-legitimizing this institution.”