TRUMP.. A CONMAN, RACIST AND CHEAT

Lawyer’s damning testimony about US president

explosive, linking in to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election. Cohen said he was in Trump’s office when the property mogul’s associate Roger Stone called. “Mr Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the Wikileaks drop of emails,” he said. “In July of 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. “Mr Trump put Mr Stone on the speakerphone. Mr Stone told Mr Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr Assange told Mr Stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Trump, he said, responded, “Wouldn’t that be great.”

Cohen went on to provide cheques to the committee he said proved Trump knew of the payoff to Daniels. The president has previously said he knew nothing about the deal. Cohen produced images of the cheques to show how and when Trump reimbursed him for the £98,000 payment to Daniels – showing Trump was intimately involved with the scheme, even while in the White House. One cheque for £26,500, dated March 17, 2017, was issued from a trust account belonging to Trump and signed by his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Another, dated August 1, 2017, was from Trump’s personal account – and signed by the president himself.

Ahead of Cohen’s testimony, Trump tweeted: “Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also.

“He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”