Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
“Lawmakers are investigating whether President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was involved in any discussions about possible pardons — which they view as a potentially ripe area of inquiry into whether anyone sought to obstruct justice,” the Washington Post reports.
“Cohen has said publicly he never asked for — and would not accept — a pardon from Trump. But people familiar with the matter said his knowledge on the topic seems to extend beyond that statement.”
John Dean: “There are several parallels between my testimony before Congress in 1973, about President Richard Nixon and his White House, and Michael Cohen’s testimony this week about President Trump and his business practices… We both found ourselves speaking before Congress, in multiple open and closed venues, about criminal conduct of a sitting president.”
“There is one overarching similarity that Mr. Cohen and I share. He came to understand and reject Mr. Trump as I did Mr. Nixon.”
“I was surprised by the number of people who surfaced to support my account. The same, I suspect, will happen for Michael Cohen. The Mafia’s code of omertà has no force in public service. I have heard no one other than Roger Stone say he will go to jail for Donald Trump.”
“President Trump sought to attack the credibility Friday of his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen by pointing to a book that he has reportedly written that depicts Trump far more favorably than did the scathing testimony he delivered to Congress this week,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony, which now is a lie!”
He added: “Congress must demand the transcript of Michael Cohen’s new book, given to publishers a short time ago. Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictions against his Thursday testimony. Like a different person! He is totally discredited!”
“The president also referenced a description of Cohen’s reported book as a ‘love letter to Trump.’ That echoed a characterization of a Cohen book proposal by journalist Liz Plank of Vox Media during a February 2018 appearance on MSNBC.”
President Trump called Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) last night from Hanoi to talk about the Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee and the threats, since rescinded, that Gaetz made about Cohen, The Atlantic reports.
Gaetz was heard telling Trump: “I was happy to do it for you. You just keep killing it.”
David Frum: “Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee was uncontradicted. The former personal attorney of the president of the United States today accused him of a litany of crimes, improprieties, immoralities, and betrayals of national security. And not one Republican member of the committee breathed one word in defense of the leader of their party.”
“Those Republicans have learned the hard way never to trust President Donald Trump’s denials.”
Michael Cohen testified that federal prosecutors are investigating unspecified criminal allegations regarding President Trump that haven’t been made public, the Washington Post reports.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) asked Cohen whether he was aware of “any wrongdoing or illegal act'”concerning the president that had not been acknowledged during Cohen’s testimony. Cohen said he was unable to answer because it’s a topic under investigation by the Southern District of New York.
Wall Street Journal: “We’re not sure what this means exactly, but it’s certainly an interesting revelation.”
“Roger Stone pushed back against Michael Cohen’s claims that Stone told Trump in July 2016 that he had spoken to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about an email dump that would hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign, saying in a text message to BuzzFeed News: ‘Mr. Cohen’s statement is not true.'”
“Stone’s text, which he made clear was a ‘statement,’ was just the one sentence, and he did not explain what exactly about Cohen’s testimony he maintained was false. Stone, who is facing criminal charges for lying to Congress, is under a gag order not to publicly comment on his case, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, or any ‘participants’ in his case or the investigation.”
ABC News captured this exchange between Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Michael Cohen during today’s House Oversight Committee hearing:
GOSAR: You’re a pathological liar. You don’t know truth from falsehood.
COHEN: Sir, I’m sorry, are you referring to me or the President?
Wall Street Journal: “On the hush-money payments, it’s not just Mr. Cohen’s word against President Trump’s. David Pecker, the chief executive of the National Enquirer’s publisher, has also told federal prosecutors about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the payment scheme, the Journal has previously reported.”
“For instance, Mr. Pecker met with then-candidate Donald Trump in August 2015 and offered to use the National Enquirer to buy the silence of any women who tried to publicize allegations of sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.”
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” will testify before the House Oversight Committee at 10 a.m. ET.
The Washington Post has an annotated version of Cohen’s opening statement in which he makes three explosive charges:
Underscoring the significance of the testimony, it will be carried by all broadcast and cable television networks.
Leave your own reactions in the comments.
“Mr. Trump called me a ‘rat’ for choosing to tell the truth — much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government.”
— Michael Cohen, in prepared testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
“What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgement of anyone in the world.”
— Michael Cohen, in his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee.
Michael Cohen will tell Congress that President Trump knew his longtime adviser Roger Stone was communicating with WikiLeaks about publishing stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, the Washington Post reports.
“In the prepared remarks, Cohen calls Trump a ‘racist,’ a ‘conman’ and a ‘cheat’ and also levels accusations that the president personally signed a check to cover ‘hush money payments’ to keep quiet an affair with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Cohen says Trump never directly told him to lie to Congress about his business dealings in Moscow, but claims the president implicitly encouraged him to do so.”
New York Times: “The testimony underscores many of the unsavory themes and stories that have recurred in public reporting about Mr. Trump — he inflates his wealth, makes racist remarks, threatens his enemies and tries to bend the law to his favor — but puts them on the record, under oath, in the voice of a man who was one of Mr. Trump’s closest aides.”
Playbook: “Republicans are going to do their best to remind the public that his testimony reeks of opportunism as the man is on the brink of prison. But so few people have made it into Trump’s inner circle, and Cohen was in it for a decade. That’s why this is incredibly compelling. Now he’s going to prison with little else to lose, and a man with nothing to lose in a circumstance like this seems like he will have a lot to say.”
“Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, will for the first time publicly accuse the president of criminal conduct while in office related to a hush-money payment to a porn star,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Appearing on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, Mr. Cohen also will make public some of Mr. Trump’s private financial statements and allege that Mr. Trump at times inflated or deflated his net worth for business and personal purposes, including avoiding paying property taxes, the person said. The financial statements were developed by Mr. Trump’s accountant.”
New York Times: “Among the most explosive and potentially damning aspects of Mr. Cohen’s testimony will be providing evidence of potential criminal conduct since Mr. Trump became president.”
Washington Post: “Cohen intends to paint Trump as a liar, a cheater and a racist during interviews with three congressional committees, two of which will take place behind closed doors. He is expected to share anecdotes about Trump’s behavior — Daniels alleged she had an affair with Trump years ago, a claim the president denies — as well as his financial dealings.”
Michael Cohen “met last month with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, offering information about possible irregularities within the president’s family business and about a donor to the inaugural committee,” the New York Times reports.
“While it was not clear whether the prosecutors found Mr. Cohen’s information credible and whether they intended to pursue it, the meeting suggests that they are interested in broader aspects of the Trump Organization, beyond their investigation into the company’s role in the hush money payments made before the 2016 election to women claiming to have had affairs with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty last summer to arranging those payments.”
“If prosecutors concluded that Mr. Cohen’s information was truthful and valuable, they could ask the judge who sentenced him to reduce his prison term.”
“An analyst with the Internal Revenue Service was charged with disclosing confidential reports about Michael Cohen’s bank records that revealed the President’s former lawyer sought to profit from his proximity to the White House,” CNN reports.
“Michael Cohen has agreed to testify in public next Wednesday before Congress about his work as President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, but lawmakers said they would limit the scope of their questioning in deference to the special counsel,” the New York Times reports.
A federal judge granted Michael Cohen a 60-day reprieve before reporting to prison “due to recent surgery and his health and recovery needs.”
He’ll now report on May 6.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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