Michael Cohen tells Congress that Trump is a ‘conman’
On Capitol Hill, ex-lawyer testifies that president misled on Russia business links
Demetri Sevastopulo in Hanoi and Courtney Weaver in Washington
© AP
Michael Cohen, the longtime lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, on Wednesday told Congress his former boss is a “conman” who indirectly told him to lie about business his real estate empire was seeking in Russia during the presidential race.
In an opening statement Mr Cohen delivered to the House oversight committee, he also accused the former New York property mogul of being a “racist” and a “cheat”.
Mr Cohen’s voice cracked as he talked about his family: “To my Laura, my Sami, and my Jake, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.” But he gathered momentum as he levied some of his worst accusations against Mr Trump.
“Since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal.”
Mr Cohen provided the committee with a series of evidence of alleged wrongdoings by Mr Trump.
Among the documents were a copy of the $35,000 cheque Mr Trump sent from his personal bank account that Mr Cohen said was to reimburse him for hush money payments to cover up an affair with an adult film actress, and copies of letters Mr Cohen says he sent at Mr Trump’s behest to the president’s high school, colleges and the College Board threatening them not to release his grades or SAT scores.
He claimed that Mr Trump had skirted the Vietnam draft by falsely claiming he received deferment due to a bone spur, while telling Mr Cohen in private that he “did not got to Vietnam” because he “was not stupid”.
“I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now,” Mr Cohen quipped.
Some Republicans tried to portray Mr Cohen as an unreliable witness who is seeking revenge against the president for not coming to his defence. Mr Cohen, who was known as “Fido” because of his fierce loyalty, once said he would “take a bullet” to protect his former boss.
At the hearing’s outset, Jim Jordan, the committee’s ranking Republican member, used his opening remarks to mock the committee’s chairman, Elijah Cummings, for choosing to invite Mr Cohen to appear before the committee despite the fact that Mr Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May for charges, including providing false testimony to Congress.
“This is the first time a convicted perjurer has been brought back to be a star witness in a hearing,” Mr Jordan said.
Mr Cummings, meanwhile, accused Republicans of attempting to block the American people from hearing Mr Cohen’s testimony.
“They have a right to hear Mr Cohen,” he said. He pledged Mr Cohen’s hearing was the beginning of the committee’s fresh investigation into potential wrongdoings by Mr Trump and his associates, particularly with regards to Russia and the 2016 election.
“Mr Cohen’s testimony is the beginning of the process — not the end,” he said.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived at the House oversight committee to hear testimony from Michael Cohen © AFP
The testimony comes as Mr Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi for a second summit to discuss denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula. The president responded on Twitter, insisting Mr Cohen was “lying in order to reduce his prison time”.
Mr Cohen, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he told lawmakers Mr Trump was no longer seeking to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 race, told the committee that he wanted to correct the record.
“The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr Trump. Today, I’m here to tell the truth about Mr Trump,” he said, adding that negotiations about the Moscow project continued “for months during the [presidential] campaign”.
“Mr Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates,” Mr Cohen said. “In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, 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.”
Mr Cohen added Mr Trump asked him about the status of the Moscow Tower project six times during the first half of 2016, when the Republican presidential primary was in full swing.“Mr Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”
Mr Cohen appeared on Capitol Hill shortly after Mr Trump had dinner with Mr Kim on Wednesday in Hanoi.
Mr Trump responded shortly before the dinner, attempting to undermine Mr Cohen’s credibility as a witness. “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,” Mr Trump wrote. “He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”
Earlier, Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, responded to suggestions Mr Cohen would accuse Mr Trump of criminal conduct by saying: “It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies.”
Mr Cohen will begin a three-year prison sentence in early May after pleading guilty to eight criminal counts. One of those charges related to his involvement in a scheme to pay two women, including adult film actress Stormy Daniels, not to make public claims that Mr Trump had affairs with them after his marriage to his current wife Melania.
Federal prosecutors have alleged Mr Cohen made the payments “at the direction” of Mr Trump.
The congressional testimony comes amid reports that Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating the role that Russia played in the 2016 election, is preparing to wrap up his investigation.
Mr Cohen said he had spoken to the special counsel’s office on seven occasions.
He described Mr Trump taking a call over speakerphone from Roger Stone, the political operative and longtime friend of Mr Trump, shortly before the Democratic convention in July 2016. Mr Mueller has charged Mr Stone with seven counts related to congressional testimony he gave about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 race.
The probe has also looked at possible contacts between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin, and also whether Mr Trump attempted to obstruct justice when he fired James Comey as director of the FBI.
Asked during the hearing whether Mr Trump could have colluded with Moscow, Mr Cohen stated that Mr Trump was a person who “will do what is necessary” to win, and said he did not rule out the possibility that Mr Trump or members of his campaign had co-ordinated Russia.
“I wouldn’t use the word colluding. Was there something odd about the back-and-forth praise with President Putin? Yes . . . There are just so many dots that all seem to lead to the same direction.
“Mr Stone told Mr Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with [WikiLeaks founder] 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,” Mr Cohen said. “Mr Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great’.”
At times, the hearing turned contentious with Republican and Democratic members shouting over one another and interrupting, as some Republicans on the committee attempted to discredit their Democratic colleagues as well as the star witness.
In his statement, Mr Cohen accused Mr Trump of being a “cheat” and said he was providing the committee with Mr Trump’s financial statements from 2011-2013. He said Mr Trump gave the documents to Deutsche Bank as part of an effort to seek a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills, an American football team.
“It was my experience that Mr Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” he said.
Mr Cohen also alleged that Mr Trump knew in advance about the release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee that were seen as damaging to Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign.
Mr Cohen also accused his former boss of being a “racist” who once asserted that black people would never vote for him “because they were too stupid”. He said the country had seen Mr Trump court white supremacists but that he was “even worse” in private.
“He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole’,” Mr Cohen said. “This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States.”
In the 20-page opening statement, Mr Cohen claimed Mr Trump ran for president not because he believed he could win — which Mr Cohen said the then New York mogul did not — but to enhance his brand.
“Mr Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history’.”
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