Trump: Ex-Lawyer Who Called Him ‘Racist, 'Con Man’ is ‘Incorrect’
Michael Cohen testified to a House of Representatives committee offering lawmakers an intimate look at Trump’s business empire and political tactics
WASHINGTON — After hours of dramatic public testimony about U.S. President Donald Trump's business and political life, longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with lawmakers again. The session before the House intelligence committee is a closed-door event, just as his appearance at the Senate intelligence committee was earlier this week. It was at the House Oversight Committee where Cohen made news Wednesday by calling Trump a "racist," a "con man" and a "cheat." Trump pushed back Thursday during a news conference in Vietnam after a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He said Cohen was "incorrect" and that he "lied a lot." His only praise for Cohen was that he was impressed his former lawyer did not lie about collusion. “The most important question up there was the one on collusion, and he said he saw no collusion,” Trump said. Trump also reiterated his repeated defense that his presidential campaign did not collude with Russia. Cohen told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that while he did not have direct evidence of collusion, “I have my suspicions.” The president attacked the ongoing investigations into possible connections with his campaign and Russia, calling Wednesday’s hearing “shameful.” “This should never happen to another president. This is so bad for our country,” Trump said. Cohen told lawmakers Trump knew his campaign adviser, Roger Stone, was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Russian-hacked Democratic National Committee emails damaging to his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton before WikiLeaks released them to the public. Cohen also said he witnessed a conversation between Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., which Cohen believes was about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian lawyer tied to the Kremlin. Cohen spent nearly six hours telling the House committee about his decade as Trump’s personal attorney. “Donald Trump 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 said. “I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listen to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.” Cohen said nothing happened within the Trump Organization without Trump knowing about it. Cohen said Trump secretly directed negotiations for a Moscow real estate deal, while publicly claiming during the campaign that he had no business interests in Russia, which would have posed a conflict. Trump repeatedly lied to voters about not having any business dealings with the Russians because he never expected to win the election and didn’t want to pass up landing a lucrative real estate deal in Moscow, according to Cohen. Cohen said that while Trump did not directly tell him to give false testimony to Congress about the Moscow negotiations, the president made clear “that he wanted me to lie.” Cohen detailed reimbursements from Trump for hush money Cohen paid weeks before the election to keep adult-film star Stormy Daniels quiet about an affair she alleges she had with Trump more than a decade ago. Cohen provided the committee a copy of one check for $35,000 that he said Trump personally signed from his personal bank account while he was president. He said the check was one of 11 installment checks. Trump is a racist, a con man, and a cheat, Cohen alleged. “The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries ‘shitholes.’ In private, he is even worse,” Cohen testified. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States. 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,” according to Cohen. He said Trump once arranged for a fake bidder at an auction to pay $60,000 for a portrait of Trump, then reimbursed the bidder out of funds from Trump’s charitable foundation so Trump could hang the painting at one of his country clubs. “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,” Cohen said. Cohen’s testimony comes about two months before he begins a three-year prison term after pleading guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He also has been disbarred and can no longer practice law in the state of New York. Republicans zeroed in on Cohen as someone who cannot be believed because he lied to Congress before and is going to prison for it. They also described Cohen as someone who is angry because he did not get a White House job he allegedly coveted and is interested in the millions of dollars he could collect from book, movie and television deals. They claimed Cohen and the Democrats are out to destroy Trump and that he is seeking a lesser prison sentence for his crimes. Cohen briefly spoke to reporters after the hearing, saying he is “humbled.” He thanked House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings “for giving me the opportunity today to tell my truth.” After hearing Cohen speak, Cummings said he believes Trump committed a crime while in office, saying Wednesday was the beginning of a process and that Americans want accountability. He dismissed Republican charges that the hearing was a circus and travesty, saying this was about the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches members of Congress are constitutionally bound to uphold. Cohen is the highest profile witness since the 1970s Watergate scandal to testify in Congress against a sitting American president. The last time the United States witnessed anything like this was in 1973, when former White House Counsel John Dean delivered a dramatic testimony that implicated President Richard Nixon and others in a cover-up effort in the Watergate affair. A year later Nixon became the only American president to resign. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to eight criminal charges, including campaign finance violations in connection with the payments to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also alleges she had an affair with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress about the Trump Organization’s efforts to negotiate a deal to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow.