Trump Lawyer Cohen To Tell Congress Trump’s A ‘Racist’ And A ‘Conman,’ According To Prepared Remarks
Michael Cohen, former lawyer for President Donald Trump, is expected to deliver testimony before Congress on Wednesday, and according to a copy of his prepared remarks obtained by The Hill, he isn’t going to be pulling any punches. In his much-anticipated hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee scheduled for Wednesday morning, Cohen plans to not only accuse the president of being racist but also a con artist. According to his remarks, he is also planning to reveal that Trump had prior knowledge that his campaign adviser Roger Stone was coordinating with Wikileaks to reveal thousands of embarrassing emails obtained from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign.
“I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat.”
Cohen went on to affirm that Trump knew Roger Stone was coordinating with Julian Assange over the DNC email dump.
“A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time,” he wrote. “The answer is yes.”
Cohen claims to have been witness to a speakerphone conversation between Trump and Stone in which Stone outlined a plan that included a public airing of the DNC emails over the subsequent few days that would “damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
“Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great,'” according to Cohen’s prepared statement.
Cohen also said that Trump once told him that black people “would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”
Of course, Cohen has had his credibility called into question before this. He was caught up in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller as well as a separate prosecution in the southern district of New York, and he pleaded guilty last year of lying to Congress and to various financial crimes and campaign finance violations.
Indeed, attacking Cohen’s credibility appears to be the angle the White House is taking in advance of the hearing. Presidential spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called it “laughable” that anyone should listen to a “convicted liar” like Cohen and said that it’s “pathetic” that Congress has even invited him to testify.
Cohen took the offensive on the credibility question however, and in his statement addressed the fact that many might attack his truthfulness.
“It is for this reason I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable and demonstrate that the information you will hear is accurate and truthful,” he wrote.
And while Cohen says that Trump didn’t directly order him to lie about his attempts to open a Trump Tower in Moscow – “that’s not how he operates,” Cohen said – he does claim that Trump oversaw all the negotiations, and lied about himself because he stood to profit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
