During his opening statement before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen blasted the president as a racist, a con, and a cheater and accused the president of knowing about the release of the hacked DNC emails ahead of time, reimbursing him for hush money payments to cover up his affair with Stormy Daniels, and indirectly telling him to lie about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
Cohen said, “I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist, he is a conman, and he is a cheat.”
He continued, “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 added that Trump wrote him a check to reimburse him “for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star” to prevent the Trump campaign from being damaged.
Cohen further stated, “I lied to Congress [about] when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. … Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. 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 Russian business, and then go on to lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie. … You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”
Cohen later added, “Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not, and I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions.”
Cohen then offered his belief that President Trump knew of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians based on a conversation between Trump Jr. and his father that Cohen witnessed around the time of the meeting.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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