The vaunted Michael Cohen testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Chairman Elijah Cummings (D. Md.) presiding, is not producing the results that the Democrats wanted because Cohen’s lack of credibility has polluted the hearing. This was foreseeable.
I regret that this hearing is not working because I am deeply opposed to Trump and all that he stands for. I would like to see him effectively exposed.
I concede that I am writing this before the hearing has concluded. But I get the gist and I do not think that any testimony to come will alter the basic fact that Cohen is an unbelievable liar and felon.
The hearing started with Cummings alleging that Cohen was one of Trump’s “closest and most trusted advisors over the last decade” and that since Trump had made statements, “now the American people have a right to hear the other side.”
Who says that Cohen was close and trusted? And why does Cohen represent the “other side” that the public’s right to know empowers as a worthy Trump opponent?Just because the Democrats characterize the Trump/Cohen relationship as close and trusted does not make it so.
From all that appears, Cohen acted as the Trump Organization resident ball-buster, throwing threatening thunder bolts at both potential plaintiffs and defendants on behalf of Trump and his business. The pigeon hole that Cohen occupied as a would-be enforcer does not mean that he was close and trusted.
Nor does a professional meanie like Cohen occupy the “other side” to Trump’s denials. (I am beginning to think that Cohen’s assignment to the proposed Trump Tower Moscow deal was part of a fan dance created by a Trump who never had any intention of making the deal work, something that Cohen may have been too dumb to figure out.)
And the presentation of Cohen as a witness by the Democrats has a foul odor.
No matter how often denied, offering Cohen as a witness against Trump while not a formal approval of him, does constitute Democrats vouching for him to some degree. Hence the Democrats’ allegations of corroboration. That stinks.
Cohen has pleaded guilty to several crimes and has been sentenced to three years after the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York blasted him in their sentencing memo. The heavy counts, tax evasion over several years and filing false statements to financial institutions, have nothing to do with Trump.
Thus, Cohen’s statements that he acted out of misplaced loyalty to Trump are flatly false as applied to the non-Trump guilty pleas. Moreover, loyal lawyers do not secretly tape their clients and march by the attorney-client privilege as though it did not exist as Cohen is doing.
As to the guilty pleas arising from payment to Stormy Daniels to assure her silence, such payments are not unusual outside the context of unreported campaign contributions.
People of wealth and position are often charged with acts that they wish to quash whether these acts took place or not. Lawyers regularly advise clients to settle embarrassing claims. So it is with Daniels. I do not know what exactly transpired between Trump and Daniels. But I do not believe either of them.
Putting Cohen before the American people as a truthful fact witness is a stunt unworthy of Democrats who oppose Trump for valid reasons. It undermines an essential opposition to a President who has tainted his office.