New York is a great town!
Thursday’s New York Times, featuring a Page One banner World War 3 headline, covers Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee with three page one stories and four and one-half pages inside written by twelve reporters and a tv critic.
Thursday’s New York Post has a picture on Page One of Cohen clothed in prison stripes including a striped mini- toque similar to the head covering probably employed by a jail chef.
You takes your pick.
I previously suggested that I thought Cohen’s testimony ineffective because his admitted crimes cause a lack of credibility.
It now appears that Cohen’s testimony was ineffective because he gave President Trump a pass.
First, Cohen declined to state that Trump explicitly told him to lie to Congress about the end date of negotiations with the Russians for a proposed Moscow Trump Tower. Cohen got the message to lie through the ether and the gestalt, intuiting that Trump’s alleged false statements to Cohen about “nothing in Russia” provided the wink and nod directing Cohen to lie and to repeat this alleged falsehood to Congress. Try that on a jury!
Second, Cohen testified that he has no knowledge of the campaign or Trump “colluding” with Moscow to influence the 2016 election. Why did the Democrats call him?
Third, Cohen testified that Trump cheated on valuation of assets held by his company and other financial improprieties but no who, what, when, where and how.
Fourth, checks produced by Cohen show that Cohen was paid by Trump but nothing on the checks suggests that the payments were to reimburse him for payments he made to Stormy Daniels. Two checks were for a “retainer” but there was no retainer agreement says Cohen. Hello, reasonable doubt.
Sure Cohen’s testimony depicts Trump as a lying scoundrel. We can gather that the two do not like each other.
In sum, I don’t think that Cohen changed anything. The Trump supporters and opponents are exactly where they were before Cohen’s blah-blah. That is not a valid example of hard-hitting oversight of Trump desperately needed from the new Democratic House.