Michael Cohen: key takeaways from the former Trump lawyer's testimony
He implied the president knew more about Russian links during the 2016 presidential race than he has admitted
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Trump allegedly knew more about the Russia connection than he has admitted
Michael Cohen told the committee he had been with Donald Trump when key events in the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election were discussed. His testimony implied that the US president was far more deeply informed about Russian links during the 2016 presidential race than he has so far admitted.
The first incident, in early June 2016, involved Cohen overhearing Trump’s son, Donald Jr, whispering in the elder Trump’s ear that “the meeting is all set”. Cohen said he took that remark, and Trump’s reply to it – “OK good … let me know” – to refer to the Trump Tower meeting that followed between Donald Jr and others in the inner Trump circle and a party of Russians peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The US president has denied he had any prior knowledge of the meeting.
Equally explosive was Cohen’s claim, the first from any Trump associate, that the then presidential candidate knew in advance about the release of stolen Democratic emails by WikiLeaks. Cohen said he had been in Trump’s office on 18 or 19 July 2016 when a phone call came in from Roger Stone, Trump’s former campaign adviser.
Stone allegedly told Trump on speaker phone that he had just got off the line to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, who had revealed that a dump of emails damaging to Clinton was imminent. WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails, later found by US intelligence to have been hacked by Russian operatives, on 22 July.
Asked by Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, whether Trump’s subsequent denial that he had ever spoken to Stone about the WikiLeaks dump was true, Cohen replied: “No, it was not.”
There is a ‘smoking gun document’
Cohen went into granular detail about a scheme that he said was cooked up by Trump, Donald Jr and the chief finance officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, to pay off Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor who has alleged she had an affair with the real estate tycoon. The scheme arranged for Cohen to be paid back the $130,000 he had paid from his own money to buy Daniels’ silence just before the 2016 election, in installments, Cohen said, in order to disguise the purpose of the transactions.
Cohen produced for the committee a copy of one of the installments – a $35,000 check signed by Trump from his personal bank account on 1 August 2017, when he was already in the White House. Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California, said this was the “smoking gun document” that proved a conspiracy by Trump to commit criminal fraud by hiding the purpose of company spending.
In Cohen’s account, Trump was aware of the scheme at every stage. “Oh, he knew about everything, yes,” he said. The aim was “to keep Trump as far away as possible” from the Daniels payments.
In an exchange with Katie Hill, a Democrat from California, Cohen said he had received a call from Trump when the lawyer was in the course of an interview with Vanity Fair. His boss wanted to agree on the “public messaging” about the payments.
Cohen was instructed to say that Trump “was not knowledgable of these reimbursements and he was not knowledgable of my actions”. That statement could place the president in severe legal jeopardy under campaign finance laws that prohibit the use of secret funds for political gain during an election.
The ‘catch and kill’ racket run by the National Enquirer owner goes much deeper than thought
In December, the publisher of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc (AMI), admitted to paying a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, $150,000 in hush money. In a so-called “catch and kill” deal, she agreed to keep silent about her alleged sexual affair with Trump while AMI agreed to suppress the story so that it remained secret.
Cohen’s testimony suggested that the practice of “catch and kill” at AMI both long preceded his arrival as Trump’s lawyer in 2007 – they went back at least 12 years he said – and went much wider than the McDougal affair. Under questioning by Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, he revealed that the media group frequently engaged in suppressing stories as a favor to Trump, a personal friend of AMI’s CEO, David Pecker.
AMI had tried to “catch and kill” a story that was circulating that Trump had been caught on tape hitting his wife Melania in an elevator. The story, Cohen said, was not true, but the National Enquirer’s owners had nonetheless checked it out with the intention of squashing it.
The company had also pursued “catch and kill” with a story over a Trump love child. That rumor was also untrue, to Cohen’s knowledge, but AMI had even so paid $15,000 to prevent it from becoming public.
Further possible legal peril for Trump
Trump could be in further legal hot water as a result of the Cohen testimony. During the course of questioning, members of the oversight committee learned that the much-feared prosecutors of the southern district of New York were pursuing fresh criminal investigations relating to the president.
The Illinois congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi asked Cohen whether he knew of any other “wrongdoing or illegality” by Trump. Cohen, declining to answer the question in detail, replied: “Yes, and those are part of the investigation that’s currently being looked at by the southern district of New York”.
It is not known what those investigations might entail, although Cohen did hint that one line of inquiry being pursued by the southern district might be possible criminal fraud committed in the course of the Stormy Daniels payments.
Further legal difficulties could arise over a 2013 sworn deposition in which Trump said he hardly knew Felix Sater, a real estate developer who had been involved in plans to build a Trump tower in Moscow. In the deposition, which carries the risk of perjury for anyone giving false testimony, Trump said he hardly knew Sater and that if they were in a room together he “really wouldn’t know what he looked like”.
Yet Cohen told the committee that Sater not only had an office in Trump Tower in Manhattan, but that it was on the 26th floor – “Mr Trump’s floor”. Documents held by the Trump Organization would prove the close relationship between the two men, he said.
As a third area of potential legal peril, Cohen said that he had in his possession about 100 voice recordings of conversations with those in and around the Trump inner circle. Asked by Speier whether he would be willing to hand them all over, he quipped: “If you really would like them.”
Threatening behavior is common currency in Trumpland
In one of the more memorable exchanges, Speier asked Cohen how many times Trump had asked him to threaten anyone on his behalf. “Quite a few times,” he replied.
“Fifty times?” Speier pressed. Cohen snapped back: “More.”
“One hundred times?”
“More.”
“Two hundred times?”
“More.”
“Five hundred times?”
“Probably. Over the 10 years.”
Cohen clarified that he meant “threatening them with litigation or an argument with a nasty reporter that is writing an article”.
