Former longtime Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen revealed on Wednesday that he hunted for a rumored tape of the president hitting Melania Trump – footage that he believes does not exist – as he described 'catch-and-kill' publishing schemes to silence allegations against Trump, including one that the president had a love child and another rumored to involve spousal abuse.
Cohen spoke on a drama-filled day on Capitol Hill, calling the president a racist, a liar and a cheat. Trump, he said, knew about WikiLeaks' plan to publish hacked Clinton emails and would work with 'anyone' to win. Cohen presented what he said was evidence that Trump knew about payments to Stormy Daniels, and continued to write checks to reimburse his attorney for them after he became president.
Republicans attacked Cohen as a serial fabulist who already stands convicted of lying to Congress, making his testimony worthless. One member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee referred him for further investigation during Wednesday's hearing, claiming he lied on a financial disclosure form about his contracts with foreign companies.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the panel's most junior members, landed a blow on Trump from 12 time zones away by broadcasting a logical reason for the committee to subpoena the president's long-sought tax returns.
Cohen told her that Trump had previously inflated the value of some properties for insurance purposes, and undervalued others when it was time to calculate tax bills. He had already provided the committee with portions of some financial records from the Trump Organization.
'Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?' Ocasio-Cortez asked.
'Yes,' Cohen replied. 'And you'd find it at the Trump Org.'
He said Trump had an interest in lowering his local real estate tax bills.
'What you do,' he said, 'is you deflate the value of the asset and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction.'
Committee members also questioned Cohen about payoff schemes involving American Media Inc. – the parent company of the National Enquirer – hatched to protect the president. One involved the rumor about Trump physically hitting the future first lady.
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Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, told a congressional panel on Wednesday about the moment Trump gave him the order to funnel $130,000 to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged sexual affair
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a socialist Democrat, grilled Cohen about Trump's alleged habit of manipulating the value of his property to save on his tax bills and inflate insurance payoffs
Cohen revealed that the Trump Organization mounted a search for a rumored tape of the president hitting first lady Melania Trump in an elevator, until company leaders concluded it never existed
Cohen told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that as a lawyer for Daniels (right) threatened to go public with her claims of a sexual affair more than a decade earlier, Trump (left, in Vietnam on Wednesday) ordered him to find a way to funnel the payment to her via that attorney
Cohen offered details of catch-and-kill payoff schemes involving David Pecker (right), the chairman of American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, to protect Trump
Cohen says he and Trump Organization lawyer Alan Weisselberg (pictured) plotted how to pay Daniels without their own fingerprints ending up on the money; they discussed the possibility of using a someone's purchase of a membership in one of Trump's golf courses as a cutout to move the funds
Republicans including North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows used the hearing to attack the attorney-turned-felon as a liar
When Ocasio-Cortez took her turn at the mic on Wednesday, she drew out a rationale for subpoenaing the president's tax returns
'The story goes that he struck Melania while in that elevator, because there's a camera inside,' Cohen said under questioning, before declaring about the supposed hidden cameras: 'I'm not so sure – actually, I'm certain it's not true.'
And 'I don't believe Mr. Trump ever struck Mrs. Trump, ever,' he said, and the man he served for a decade would not 'ever do something like that.'
Cohen said he had heard rumors of the tape's existence and that people from American Media Inc. had tried to 'catch and kill' it, buying the exclusive rights to the story and never publishing it.
'I know several people who went to go try to purchase it for catch and kill purpose,' Cohen told the committee.
He also recalled that David Pecker, the chairman of AMI, paid $15,000 to kill a story that Trump had a love child with an employee.
'There was the story about Mr. Trump having a love child with an employee – with an employee and actually the husband of that employee works for the company as well, and there was an elevator operator who claims he overheard the conversation taking place between one of Mr. Trump's other executives and somebody and he ended up paying like $15,000 in order to buy that story to find out whether it was true or not,' he said.
'And that's just one example of things that David had done,' Cohen said.
He noted to the 'best of my knowledge' Trump hasn't fathered any children through extramarital affairs.
In April 2018, it was reported that Dino Sajudin, the former doorman for Trump Tower, had a signed deal with AMI for his story of how Trump had a child with an ex-housekeeper.
Pecker has received immunity from federal prosecutors for providing details of the catch-and-kill payments.
Cohen said the knowledge Pecker had of Trump is one of the reasons he and the president discussed their concern about a new job offer for Pecker in a tape of the two men talking.
'It was the reason why in the recording when David was looking to become the CEO of "Time" magazine, we were concerned of the treasure trove of documents that someone could open up the drawer and we would have to buy the life rights and so on,' he told lawmakers.
Cohen also told the congressional panel about the moment President Trump gave him the order to funnel $130,000 to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels as her attorney threatened that she would go public about her claims of a past sexual affair.
Furious Republicans crossed swords with Cohen and called him a liar on his way to prison who has neither credibility nor remorse, blasting him one after another in furious tones and eye-daggers.
Cohen stood his ground and recounted a day in Trump Tower when the future president made the decision to make the payoff.
'He had told me he had spoken to a couple of friends,' Cohen recalled of a meeting in then-candidate Trump's Trump Tower office.
'It's $130,000, it's not a lot of money and we should just do it. So go ahead and do it",' he said Trump told him.
Cohen said he and Trump Organization attorney Allen Weisselberg, were in Trump's office, and he 'directed us to go back to Weisselberg's office and figure this all out.'
The result, a 'hush money' payment to Daniels with funds originating from a home equity line of credit Cohen obtained – at Trump's direction, he claimed in a House Oversight and Reform committee hearing – was part of the money Trump repaid in a series of $35,000 checks to him that continued during his first year in office.
Originally, he said, he had asked Weisselberg 'to use his money' to pay Daniels. '[I] didn't want to use mine. And he said he couldn't. And we then decided [to discuss] how else we can do it.'
They two men discussed ways of laundering the payment through Trump's golf business, he said.
'He asked me whether or not I knew anybody who wants to have a party at one of his clubs that could pay me instead,' Cohen claimed. 'Or somebody who may have wanted to become a member of one of the golf clubs. And I also don't have anybody that was interested in that.'
'And it got to the point where it was down to the wire. It was either, somebody wire the funds and purchase the life rights to the story from Ms. Clifford, or it was going to end up being sold to television, and that would have embarrassed the president and it would have interfered with the election.'
Daniels praised Cohen in a statement to reporters.
'Michael, I’m proud of you for finally beginning to tell the truth about what you did, and trying to repair some of the harm you have caused. I can hear the pain and regret you feel for betraying your family and your country. My heart goes out to you and your family,' she said.
'Do you believe now that when you and the president called me a liar, when you were his attorney and you insulted me, threatened to bankrupt me and worse, that you put me and my family in danger? I remember the fear you feel. I still feel it.
'Thank you for having the courage, at long last, to begin to tell the truth. I hope that some day soon your family and mine can both leave this nightmare behind.'
Hour after hour, Cohen unloaded on his former boss, bringing a pair of $35,000 checks he cashed as partial reimbursement of the 'hush money' he paid to Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The Stormy Daniels payoff happened in the weeks following the explosive leak of audio recorded during a taping of 'Access Hollywood,' in which Trump made comments about the ease with which famous men can sexually assault women.
President Trump was in Vietnam on Wednesday, conducting a nuclear summit with North Korean dictator Jim Jong Un – an event that has slipped to also-ran status in the news
The Cohen saga has become political entertainment for Democrats and a source of increasingly dire frustration for Republicans as partisan conflict threatens to consume the White House
Cohen said his boss was worried that a second sex scandal in the weeks before the 2016 election would doom his candidacy.
'I was concerned about it,' he said, 'But more importantly, Mr. Trump was concerned about it.'
Cohen had claimed an hour earlier that Trump never wanted to be president and saw his campaign as an 'infomercial' for his commercial business.
He said in his opening statement that he had lied to first lady Melania Trump about the Stormy Daniels affair, and regrets it now.
'He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair and to lie to his wife about it, which I did,' he said of Trump.
'Lying to the first lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly and she did not deserve that.'
COHEN 'ASHAMED' TO HAVE SERVED TRUMP
In a hotly anticipated hearing tainted by Cohen's own admission he has lied to Congress in the past, he branded the president an unpatriotic grifter whom he regretted ever working for.
'I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,' Cohen said.
Like other witnesses in Capitol Hill hearings, Cohen swore an oath to tell the truth. But Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress during testimony in 2018. DailyMail.com was unable to find another case where a congressional committee devoted a hearing to testimony from someone in that circumstance.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, speaking for the first time in a public forum about his experiences related to his criminal conduct and the president's alleged role
Cohen faced immediate questions about his credibility since he is a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress already
Cohen has provided members of Congress with two checks, one signed by the president and the other by his son Donald Jr, which he says was reimbursement for payments meant to keep Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal quiet; President Trump's check was written after he had been president for more than a half-year
The Donald Trump Jr.-signed check was dated in March 2017, and was drawn on a family Trust; A Trump Organization official told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that Trump Jr. was unaware when he signed it that it was part of a repayment plan for Cohen's hush-money outlay
Cohen said he has no means of financial support, but conceded that publishers and producers have approached him for the rights to his life story.
He declined to commit to not pursuing TV contracts or book deals, and said 'No' when a Republican panel member asked if he would give any proceeds to charity.
Cohen also acknowledged Wednesday that since he's still cooperating with federal prosecutors on cases unrelated to his own, he hopes to serve less time in federal prison than the three years he faces in May. He claimed that he doesn't expect his congressional testimony to have an impact.
And he claimed that in 2011 he personally launched the momentum for Trump's rise to power, with a website called Should Trump Run.
'That was me,' Cohen said.
REPUBLICANS: COHEN WANTED WHITE HOUSE JOB
Committee ranking Republican Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, called Cohen a resentful man who is lashing out at Trump because he was left off the White House team when Trump took office.
'You wanted to work at the White House but you didn't get brought to the dance,' Jordan said.
'I was offered jobs,' Cohen countered, saying that Trump wanted him to take a position 'working with Don McGahn in the White House counsel's office.'
He didn't take the position, he claimed, that 'there would be no attorney-client privilege' protecting the president with regard to matters that predated the 2017 inauguration.
Eric Trump, the president's son, tweeted that Cohen was bitter: 'Michael was lobbying EVERYONE to be “Chief of Staff.” It was the biggest joke in the campaign and around the office. Did he just perjure himself again?'
On CNN, host Jake Tapper said Cohen was lying.
'The issue there is that one sentence: "I did not want to go to the White House." All of our reporting suggests that's not true,' Tapper said.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, has claimed in interviews that Trump paid Cohen a monthly retainer of $35,000 for legal services, as reimbursement for the campaign-year payoffs to the women, who have said they bedded Trump more than a decade ago. Trump has denied ever being sexually involved with either Daniels, a pornographic actress, or McDougal, a former Playboy mode.
President Trump was in Hanoi, Vietnam on Wednesday, brushing off the Cohen media circus and focusing on a long-awaited second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (right)
The president tweeted a trans-pacific slap at Cohen, torching his credibility as a disbarred former lawyer who lied to Congress and will report to prison in May
Pedestrians walk past a news banner in the Times Square neighborhood of New York as it references Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, as he testified before Congress
One check provided to the committee was signed by Trump himself in August 2017, more than six months into his administration, and issued from what Cohen says is the president's personal account.
The other is from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust – and signed by both Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.
A Trump Organization official told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that Donald Trump Jr. was unaware when he signed the check that it was part of a repayment plan for Cohen's hush-money outlay.
Cohen said Wednesday that the money 'was declared to be a retainer for services' although 'there is no retainer agreement.'
Hours later Cohen refused to answer a question about whether the series of reimbursement checks he received were linked to any criminal investigations.
He also refused to utter Giuliani's name on Wednesday, calling him only Trump's TV lawyer.'
REPUBLICANS TRY TO DELAY
Wednesday's hearing opened with Republican Rep. Mark Meadows attempting to delay it for a day, saying Cohen had broken the committee's rules by not giving members 24 hours to review his testimony before delivering it in person.
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings shot him down, with Democrats overruling the motion.
Cohen claimed he heard Roger Stone tell then-candidate Trump about illicit campaign contacts with WikiLeaks and allege Donald trump Jr. secretly told his father ahead of time about an infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting attended by a Kremlin-tied Russian lawyer.
He said the president never intended to win the White House but saw the campaign as an 'infomercial' to boost his own commercial brand.
And he told lawmakers that Trump said black Americans were too stupid to vote for him.
In one light moment, Jordan asked Cohen about the 'sex symbol' status he tried to engineer by paying an Internet tech firm to create a 'Women for Cohen' Twitter account.
'It was for fun,' Cohen said with a rare smile.
'FAKE BIDDER' BOUGHT TRUMP PORTRAIT AT HIS REQUEST
Cohen claimed Wednesday that Trump ordered him to arrange for a 'straw bidder' to purchase a portrait of himself six years ago and made his now-disbanded charitable foundation pay for it.
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was dissolved in December as one consequence of a legal probe that alleges 'persistently illegal conduct' related to money it distributed.
Cohen wants to get out from under the shame of a three-year prison term for lying to Congress, and used a return trip to Capitol Hill to bare his soul about everything Trump
Cohen alleges charitable funds paid for the portrait of Trump, and that it later hung in one of the president's country clubs.
'The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder, despite keeping the art for himself,' Cohen charged.
The incident Cohen describes matches reports about a portrait of Trump sold at a 2013 art auction. Tax law prohibits charitable leaders from using a nonprofit's assets to enrich themselves.
SKEPTICS HIT CONVICTED LIAR
Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said Cohen's credibility 'is a legitimate question.' Cummings is a former prosecutor.
'As he has admitted, he has repeatedly lied in the past,' Cummings said.
But he insisted that following two years of denials from Trump, 'the American people have a right to hear the other side. They should watch Mr. Cohen's testimony and make their own judgments.'
For committee Republicans, too, skepticism was the order of the day.
Ranking Republican Jim Jordan called Cohen 'a guy who can't be trusted.'
'It's the first time a convicted perjurer has been brought back to be a star witness in a hearing,' he said during his opening statement, calling the star witness 'a guy who is going to prison in two months for? Lying to Congress.'
Jordan also claimed former Bill Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis, who represents Cohen, organized the hearing. Davis sat behind Cohen in the first row.
'This is the Michael Cohen hearing presented by Lanny Davis. That's right: Lanny Davis choreographed the entire thing. The Clintons' best friend!' he marveled.
'He told our committee staff that this was his idea. ... He had to persuade the chairman to actually have it,' Jordan said.
'We have some serious questions about Michael Cohen,' Kentucky Rep. James Comer said Wednesday morning on CNN.
'The fact that he's the sole witness; and the fact that he's already lied once to Congress; he's a convicted felon who was just disbarred this week from the New York Bar,' he said.
'I mean, the credibility factor with Michael Cohen is probably the lowest we've ever seen for a major witness in congressional testimony history.'
Carl Bernstein, the famed Watergate-era journalist, resisted comparing Cohen to John Dean, President Richard Nixon's White House counsel who became a whistle-blower in 1973.
Ready for his close-up: Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive and attorney for President Donald Trump, arrived Wednesday to testify in a House hearing to discuss the president's involvement in a hush-money scheme to quiet his alleged mistresses as he ran for the White House in 2016
'This guy was a flunkie. He was a runner. He was a fixer,' Bernstein said of Cohen. 'Trump always held him in relative contempt.'
But in 20 pages of prepared testimony released Tuesday night, Cohen claimed to have inside information that suggested a much more exalted perch in Trumpworld.
Trump 2020 campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement while Wednesday's hearing was in a mid-afternoon recess that 'Michael Cohen is a felon, a disbarred lawyer, and a convicted perjurer, who lied to both Congress and the Special Counsel in a "deliberate and premeditated" fashion according to the Special Counsel's Office. Now he offers what he says is evidence, but the only support for that is his own testimony, which has proven before to be worthless.'
'As noted by the Southern District of New York,' she continued, Cohen's wide array of crimes were "marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life" and his "instinct to blame others is strong." Prosecutors said his actions were to ensure that he would "profit personally, build his own power, and enhance his level of influence."
'This is the same Michael Cohen who has admitted that he lied to Congress previously. Why did they even bother to swear him in this time?'
SCHUMER SEES CONSPIRACY
The hearing that aired all day while Trump and his top aides were in Vietnam allowed for Cohen's newest claims to go unchecked by the White House and the president.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer suggested in a Wednesday floor speech that the timing of Trump's overseas trip may be more than coincidental.
'I hate to say it, but it would be absolutely incredible and even pathetic if President Trump were giving in to North Korea for the sake of a photo-op to knock Michael Cohen's hearing from the front page,' Schumer proclaimed.
'But if the past behavior of the president is any guide, something like that is, unfortunately, totally conceivable.'
Trump announced the dates of his summit with Kim in his Feb. 5 State of the Union Speech. It was not until Feb. 20, more than two weeks later, that the House Oversight Committee announced Cohen would testify while the president was abroad.
Cohen had initially agreed to answer lawmakers' questions on Feb. 7, but he postponed the appearance.
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia told DailyMail.com during a hearing recess that he found Cohen 'more credible and sincere than one might have thought in advance.'
'I also think Republicans are helping him,' he said. 'They're so over the top they're making him look sympathetic.'
Connolly said he would recommend bringing Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow and Trump Organization lawyer Allen Weisselberg to a future committee hearing. But the president's family members, he added, would be 'dangerous, only because it gets real personal real fast and it risks backfiring.'
TRUMP THE 'RACIST'
Cohen branded the president a 'racist' on Wednesday.
'Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and big got bigots. You have heard him call foreign countries s***holes. He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black wasn't that wasn't a s***hole. This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States,' 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. And yet I continued to work for him.'
Eric Trump, the president's second son, scoffed at Cohen's contention that he wasn't biting back out of scorn for not being chosen for a top White House role
The House Oversight Committee hearing room included display boards brought by Republicans seeking to impeach the former Trump fixer's credibility
While the Cohen circus was getting underway in Washington, President Trump was leaving a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam
Cohen also noted the president's comments about a 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia attended by white supremacists.
Trump has repeatedly defended himself against allegations of racism and has expressed frustration that he does not get more support from African-American voters.
'No, No. I am not a racist,' he said in January 2018 after his comments about calling African nations s***hole countries was revealed.
THE ROGER STONE SAGA
He blasted his former employer and mentor for an alleged June 2016 conversation with Republican dirty-trickster Roger Stone.
Cohen claims Stone told him that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had told him a 'massive dump' of emails harmful to Hillary Clinton would be released in just a few days.
Stone has claimed he knew nothing about the torrent of emails that would eventually trickle out a month at a time, all hacked from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. He also insists he has had no contact with WikiLeaks.
But U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russian agents stole the materials and used WikiLeaks as a conduit to make them public. Stone, Federal prosecutors have charged Stone, Trump's longtime informal adviser whose political monkeywrenching dates back to the Nixon era, with witness tampering and lying to Congress.
Donald Trump Jr., pictured Wednesday morning in New York, did not know a $35,000 check he signed to Michael Cohen was intended as part of the Stormy Daniels hush-money reimbursement, according to a Trump Organization official
'Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange,' Cohen recounts in his prepared testimony, '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.'
In a statement to reporters, Stone said Wednesday: 'Mr. Cohen's statement is not true.'
Stone is under a gag order in his own federal trial for obstruction of an official proceeding, false statements and witness tampering
Cohen will report to prison in May to serve a three-year sentence for crimes he has admitted to, including lying previously to House investigators.
As a stunning series of revelations stole much of the media spotlight away from Trump's summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the president shook his head when a reporter asked him to comment on the controversy.
Instead, the president fired back on Twitter from Hanoi, Vietnam.
'Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also,' Trump tweeted.
'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. Using Crooked’s lawyer!'
Trump called Hillary Clinton 'Crooked Hillary' during their 2016 campaign clashes. Lanny Davis, who represented Bill Clinton during the 1990s Monica Lewinsky scandal, is now one of Cohen's attorneys.
Cohen had two other clients: fellow Republican National Committee deputy finance chairman Elliott Broidy and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity.
Broidy is reportedly under federal investigation for his alleged role in schemes to sell his influence in Trumpworld, including deals with Chinese and Malaysian companies.
Cohen spoke to the Senate Intelligence Committee for nine hours on Tuesday
Aide: Michael Cohen was accompanied by Lanny Davis, the long-term Clinton advisor who is acting as his personal attorney
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told DailyMail.com that Cohen – who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress – appeared credible to lawmakers and apologized on Tuesday
He engaged in his own hush-money scheme, paying $1.6 million to former Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard to cover up a sexual affair.
TRUMP 'INFLATED' NET WORTH TO GET LOANS
Cohen testified that Trump routinely 'inflated' valuations of his property empire – and furnished documents furnished to a lender in order to secure funds for Trump to buy the Buffalo Bills NFL franchise.
He handed over internal Trump Organization financial statements from 2011 through 2013, including documents he said were used to try to obtain a loan for that purchase.
The valuations show a sudden jump in Trump's self-proclaimed net worth, from $4.6 billion in 2012 to $8.7 billion a year later, when he was angling to buy the team.
'These documents and others were provided to Deutsche Bank on one occasion where I was with them in our attempt to obtain money so that we can put a bid on the Buffalo Bills,' Cohen said. 'I believe these numbers are inflated.'
Willfully lying to a lender to secure a loan can be a crime. Cohen himself was sentenced to prison, in part, for falsifying the purpose of the home equity line of credit he used for the Stormy Daniels payoff.
He said Wednesday that the documents were those Trump 'gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank,' indicating other lenders may be involved.
The March 31, 2013 statement includes a $4 billion valuation for 'brand value' – a figure that wasn't included the prior year.
THE ABANDONED 'TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW' PROJECT
Cohen described briefing Trump on his work to develop a Moscow skyscraper project during the 2016 election, and revealed that he discussed it with Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump.
His guilty plea for lying to Congress related stemmed from his claim under oath that the project was a dead issue by the time Trump won his first 2016 primary contest in New Hampshire. That turned out to be false, and Cohen claimed he misled Congress out of loyalty to his boss.
'I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,' he said Wednesday.
Cohen said he briefed Trump's children on the project during 'the regular course of business' on about 10 occasions.
'Our goal was to get this project. We were interested in building what would have been the largest building in all of Europe,' he said of his briefings with then-candidate Trump.
Cohen made clear that Trump never directly ordered him to lie about it, but claimed the president indirectly indicated his wishes.
Cohen also played a role in hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels (left) and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal (right)
'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,' Cohen said.
He also claimed that Trump asked for updates on the Russia project 'at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June.'
COHEN: TRUMP NEVER WANTED TO WIN
Cohen's 20-page statement, dripping with contempt for his former employer, describes Trump as 'is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.'
Cohen claims the president often said his White House campaign 'was going to be the 'greatest infomercial in political history.'
'He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign – for him – was always a marketing opportunity,' according to the disgraced former attorney who lost his license to practice law on Tuesday.
'I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat. He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails,' Cohen said.
THE TRUMP TOWER MEETING
Cohen also describes being present and hearing cryptic comments by Donald Trump Jr. to his father in early June of 2016 that Cohen believes referenced a Trump Tower meeting with Russians
'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,' according to Cohen.
June is when Don Jr., former campaign chair Paul Manafort, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
It's over: How Michael Cohen was formally barred from being an attorney in New York
32 months later, it's impossible to verify if Don Jr. was discussing another matter.
The president's eldest son mocked Cohen Wednesday on Twitter, responding to a conservative who noted that Congressional Democrats had invited a high-profile witness to testify after he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
'This time it’s different,' he tweeted, adding an emoji depicting an eye-roll.
White House Press Secretary Sarah sanders said in a statement that '[d]isgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. 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.'
'Only Democrats could hate someone so much that they would try to disrupt nuclear peace talks with testimony from a convicted felon,' he added.
Cohen didn't spare himself from criticism on the eve of losing his freedom.
'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. I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience,' Cohen said.
'He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails,' Cohen said, connecting Trump to the hack that U.S. intelligence and prosecutors say was directed by and carried out by Russian military intelligence.
Cohen spent Tuesday before a Senate panel, testifying behind closed doors. He will submit to another private grilling before a Senate committee on Thursday.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/28/cohen-reveals-he-hunted-for-nonexistent-tape-of-trump-hitting-melania/
Main photo article Former longtime Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen revealed on Wednesday that he hunted for a rumored tape of the president hitting Melania Trump – footage that he believes does not exist – as he described ‘catch-and-kill’ publishing schemes to silence allegations against Trump, inc...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/27/20/10372200-6751881-image-a-5_1551298850906.jpg
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