WASHINGTON, Feb 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen was grilled on their relationship in a Senate hearing Tuesday, the first of three that could produce explosive new revelations about the US leader.
Cohen spent some eight hours behind the closed doors of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he is believed to have been quizzed on Trump’s Russia connections, business practices and illegal hush payments he allegedly ordered Cohen to arrange ahead of the 2016 election for two women claiming they had affairs with now-President Trump.
Cohen’s sole public appearance on Capitol Hill this week, at the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, threatens to be stormy.
The president’s onetime personal lawyer is expected to discuss alleged criminal behavior by Trump, and his “lies, racism and cheating” and questionable business conduct.
“I really appreciate the opportunity that was given to me to clear the record and to tell the truth,” Cohen said Tuesday following his testimony.
“And I look forward to tomorrow to being able to, in my voice, to tell the American people my story, and I’m going to let the American people decide exactly who’s telling the truth.”
Senators declined to discuss what he told them, as the Intelligence Committee pursues its own high-stakes investigation into Russian meddling in the election that brought Trump to power.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the committee vice chairman, stressed however the importance of Cohen’s appearance.
“Two years ago when this investigation started, I said it may be the most important thing I’m involved in in my public life in the Senate,” Warner told reporters after the hearing.
“Nothing I heard from today dissuades me from that view.”
– Trump’s ‘fixer’ tells all –
Cohen, 52, worked closely with Trump for more than 12 years becoming vice president of the Trump Organization, where he was the billionaire property magnate’s behind-the-scenes “fixer.”
Last year, he pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds for the hush payments to the two women, which he claims was done at Trump’s command.
He also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in testimony in 2017 when he sought to cover up Trump’s pursuit of a lucrative Moscow real estate project during the previous year’s presidential election.
Cohen could potentially implicate the White House in those lies, which he later said admitted he undertook to protect the president.
Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said last week that his client will detail “chilling” and “personal, frontline experiences” of incidents and conduct by Trump.
– Republican damage control –
Wednesday’s hearing will take place while Trump is in Hanoi for a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
CNN reported that Trump plans to watch the broadcast in between negotiating sessions.
Girding for a fresh political assault on the president, Republicans focused on damage control, pointing out that Cohen is headed to prison for three years for his crimes and labelling him a convicted liar.
“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,” Trump’s spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said from Hanoi.
“It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word.”
A close ally of Trump in the House, Matt Gaetz, fired a barely-veiled threat in a tweet addressed to Cohen.
“Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot,” Gaetz wrote.
Democrats expressed outrage at the tweet, accusing Gaetz of illegal witness intimidation.
Cohen’s attorney Davis called the tweet “a new low” in US political culture.
“We will not respond to Mr Gaetz’s despicable lies and personal smears, except to say we trust that his colleagues in the House, both Republicans and Democrats, will repudiate his words and his conduct,” Davis said in a statement.