Michael Cohen appears to Congress to open up secrets about Trump and Hannity. |
He will address remarks made by Trump during the campaign.
Trump has already went into a rant.
Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also. He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time. Using Crooked’s lawyer!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2019
Cohen is heading to federal time out for lying to Congress, campaign finance fraud and failure to disclose statements to federal authorities.
Congress also found some issue with Trump's former lawyer lying about hush payments made to adult entertainer/activist Stormy Daniels.
Cohen will address his knowledge about Roger Stone, the now muted former Trump adviser giving the campaign the heads up on Wikileaks and the release of Hillary Clinton and her allies emails.
"I am ashamed of my own failings, and I publicly accepted responsibility for them by pleading guilty in the Southern District of New York," Cohen writes in his intended remarks. "I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty -- of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him.
"I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat."
According to the copy of Cohen's prepared remarks, he'll be presenting evidence including: a copy of a check Trump allegedly wrote, after taking office, to reimburse Cohen for hush-money paid to an adult-film star; copies of letters written by Cohen threatening Trump's high school, colleges and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores; and copies of financial statements from 2011 to 2013.
Cohen was Trump's most trusted ally. The two now are feuding now. |
"I want to apologize to each of you and to Congress as a whole," the intended remarks state. "The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr. Trump. Today, I'm here to tell the truth about Mr. Trump. I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false -- our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign."
Cohen's statement goes on to say, "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 business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie."
"To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.
Remember Sean "Softball" Hannity failed to disclose his ties to Cohen. |
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in statement on Tuesday: "Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies."
Cohen in December was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including lying to Congress.
Judge William Pauley said at the time that "Cohen pled guilty to a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct" and "lost his moral compass."
Cohen also was ordered to pay $1.39 million in restitution, forfeit $500,000 tied to financial crimes and pay $50,000 for lying to Congress. He was disbarred in New York on Tuesday.
"Donald Trump," Cohen's prepared statement continued, "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.'"
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