Listen to Michael Cohen’s testimony live here.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer is testifying in open session of the House Oversight Committee today and according to his prepared testimony, he intends it to be quite damning. He will call the president a “racist,” a “conman” and a “cheat.” He will also claim that President Trump never intended to win the 2016 election and ran as a way to grow his own wealth. Cohen’s testimony reads, in part, “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. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.”
Perhaps most problematic for President Trump, Cohen will directly accuse him of criminal activity, identifying him as the person named as “individual #1” in court documents related to his guilty plea in November for lying to congress.
Democratic members of the committee will likely focus on Cohen’s work on behalf of the Trump Organization to secure a Trump Tower in Moscow during the runup to the 2016 election as well as his knowledge of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee later published by Wikileaks. Republican members of the committee are likely to attempt to paint Cohen as unreliable and a known liar in an attempt to discredit his testimony.
This post will be updated throughout the testimony.
10:06: Republican members of the committee immediately attempted to postpone the testimony on the grounds that Cohen’s written testimony wasn’t provided 24 hours ahead of time, also claiming that CNN had access to the testimony before they did. The motion to postpone went down on a party line vote.
10:57: Cohen has finished his prepared testimony. Here are a few of the most notable claims he made:
President Trump "knew of and directed" negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
President Trump knew about the Wikileaks dump of emails from the Democratic National Committee through Roger Stone.
President Trump wrote a personal check to Cohen to cover the cost of "hush money" payments.
While he has suspicions about whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, he does not have direct evidence of it.
You can read Cohen's entire opening statement here.
11:16: Cohen is being very careful not to say that he doesn't know President Trump or the campaign colluded with Russia, although based on his experience with the President, he said he does believe "Mr. Trump's desire to win would have him work with anyone."
11:31: Cohen and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are having a testy exchange about whether or not he take responsibility for his crimes. He responded to Jordan, "Shame on you."
11:34: Under questioning from Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-Washington D.C.) Cohen said President Trump told him to "do it" with respect to paying Stormy Daniels $130,000.
11:38: Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina) had Lynne Patton, an African American woman who works for the Trump organization, stand behind him during his questioning, using part of a statement she made to the committee about President Trump as a way to dispute the claim that is racist. Meadows also noted that he's talked the President 300 times and never heard him say anything racist.
11:46: Cohen is walking the committee through ways he claims President Trump inflated his wealth. One way Cohen said that was done was by using the highest price per square foot of real estate in the neighborhood of a Trump property and apply to that property.
12:02: Jim Jordan is attempting to pin Cohen down on how his lawyer, Lannie Davis, will get paid. Both Cohen and Davis say that Cohen will pay Davis himself only after he gets out of prison and begins to earn a living.
12:09: Cohen is responding to questions about whether President Trump or anyone at the Trump organization ever threatened people. Cohen: "Everybody’s job at the Trump Organization was to protect Mr. Trump…That’s exactly what’s happening here in government." He also explained that the way the Trump presidency has played out is the reason he finally decided to testify, citing the President's response to Charlottesville and having to watch "the daily destruction of our civility towards one another"
12:11: Cohen has asked for a break and the committee is in recess.
12:25: And we're back.
12:51: Cohen is being asked for the second time to commit to never make any money out from his experience, presumably because if he were to be paid for a book or movie, it would make his testimony less credible. For the second time he declined to do it.
12:56: Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) seems to be asking about incriminating video tapes made of President Trump alleged by Christopher Steele—Cohen claims not to know if those tapes exist.
1:05: Cohen just claimed President Trump either misled or lied under oath about his contacts with Russian-born developer and investor Felix Sater.
1:12: Justin Amash (R-Michigan) may be the first Republican to ask a serious question about what Cohen knows about President Trump: "What is the truth you know that President Trump fears most." Cohen demured, saying he didn't know how to answer.
1:15: Twice earlier Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina) made much out of a disclosure form Cohen filled out before the testimony where he did not disclose foreign contracts. Meadows tried to suggest that Cohen may have perjured himself by not delcaring them on the form. Katie Hill (D-California) just noted that the form asked about contracts with foreign governments not any foreign contracts, which Cohen says he never had.
1:20: Under questioning from Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) Cohen finally responded to claims by several Republicans so far that they have never witnessed President Trump behave in the way Cohen suggests. "You've met him for a short period of time. I've been with him for a decade."
1:32: This is the second time this has come up: Republican members of the committee seem to suggest that the documents Cohen is using to prove his statements should be in the possession of law enforcement. For the second time Cohen said those boxes were in the possession of law enforcement during the investigation that eventually resulted in his guilty plea and were then returned to him. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) seems to want them reseized though.
2:15: Greg Steube (R-Florida) is asking whether Cohen has any proof that President Trump reimbursed him for hush money payments to Stormy Daniels besides the checks from President Trump and the Trump organization for the money Cohen paid Daniels' lawyer. Perhaps, suggested Steube, those payments were for legal counsel, apparently making the amounts a coincidence.
2:26: Chip Roy (R-Texas) has stopped asking Cohen questions and is listing off arrests and incidents at the US/Mexico border.
2:32: The committee is in recess until about 3:30 to accomodate congressional votes.
By and large the hearing is going as many predicted. Democratic members of the committee are digging into the weeds of how payments were made to keep negative stories about President Trump out of the news and the President's involvement with the Trump Tower Moscow project, with a few tangents to ask about whether there might be other incriminating information about Trump out there with corroborating evidence. Republicans have had a narrow focus asking Cohen repeatedly about counts of tax and bank fraud he pled guilty to. It should be noted though, that the fraud counts are only some of what Cohen pled guilty to. Congressional Republicans have, by and large, ignored the counts of violating campaign finance law and lying to congress, both of which benefitted President Trump.
3:27: In a piece of news tangentially related to the hearing, Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), is being investigated by the Florida Bar for violating professional conduct rules over a now-deleted tweet to Cohen February 26. In the tweet Gaetz wrote, "Hey Michael Cohen, do you your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Might be a good time for that chat."
4:27: And we're back. The last round of questioners will include several of the high profile Democratic women elected in 2018 including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachussetts) and Rashida Talib (D-Michigan).
The committee is still fighting over whether or not Cohen provided all the information he was supposed to on his truth in testimony form. The question is whether or not his dealings with a bank in Kazakhstan count as a contract with a foreign government or not. Whether that his work with the Kazakh bank belonged on the form or not, Cohen did confirm that it existed.
4:38: This is the first mention of President Trump's tax returns of the day. Under questions from Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) Cohen said the President told him that if he did release his tax returns, experts might review them and he might "end up under audit." Cohen said that led him to believe the President wasn't actually under audit despite the many times he claimed otherwise.
4:45: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) limited her questions to some of President Trump's golf courses. Cohen said it was his experience that the value of the course would be deflated to keep the real estate taxes low on courses in New York and Florida.
4:55: Rashida Talib is taking serious umbridge at the earlier appearance of Lynne Patton, who is a black employee of the Trump organization, as evidence that President Trump is not racist. "Just becasue someone has a person of color working for them does not mean they aren't racist."
5:00: Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina), who invited Patton is pushing back agaist Talib's statements, saying he feels attacked personally.
5:02: Everyone seems to have calmed down. Talib said she didn't intend to suggest that Meadows was racist and Meadows withdrew his request that her comments be stricken from the record.
5:05: The hearing is concluding with the inclusion by Republicans of a number of news stories about Michael Cohen's illegal acts and ethical violations into the record.
5:10: Cohen, ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) made closing statements that were mostly retreading ground covered in depth over the last seven hours. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) though, is making an impassioned plea for people to hear Cohen's testimony and use it as a step towards a return to "normal."
Whether it will make a difference or change anyone's mind is still unclear.