Washington Post: Cohen Hearings Were Explosive Or Something

The Washington Post Editorial Board takes on the Michael Cohen, remember, he’s going to jail and one the convictions is for lying to Congress, hearings, and think they have the goods!

Michael Cohen’s hearing was explosive — but not for what was new

FORMER TRUMP lawyer Michael Cohen’s Wednesday hearing before the House Oversight Committee was explosive not for what was new — but, depressingly, what was not new to anyone watching this administration with clear eyes. The takeaway: President Trump is a liar with a defective character — and, possibly, a criminal.

Corroborating allegations previously revealed in court documents, the president’s former fixer said Mr. Trump was deeply involved in the felony campaign finance violation to which Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom. Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump asked him to pay adult-film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to keep her silent about an alleged affair. Mr. Cohen provided a copy of a check, signed by the president, reimbursing him for the illegal payoff. “I am going to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment from the American people before they voted a few days later,” Mr. Cohen said. “He knew about everything.”

Mr. Cohen also insisted that Mr. Trump got advance notice in July 2016 from GOP trickster Roger Stone that WikiLeaks was planning to publish documents damaging to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. If true, this means Mr. Trump lied to the country when he denied ever speaking with Mr. Stone, who is now under indictment, about WikiLeaks.

Mr. Cohen offered a similar account of the president’s dishonesty on the question of whether Mr. Trump pursued a Trump Tower in Moscow during the campaign. “Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Mr. Cohen said. He stipulated that Mr. Trump did not order him to lie to Congress about the matter, as Mr. Cohen did, but explained that he “made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie.”

Even if any of this was true, the only thing that would be even reasonably close to a criminal violation is the Stormy Daniel payoff, but, there’s zero proof that the payoff happened the way Liar Cohen stated, nor is there any proof that any of the other things happened the way he said. Which wouldn’t be illegal anyhow. Remember, the WP was protecting Hillary, who actually did violate numerous federal laws, including ones ones on national security, in the straight news, the op-eds, and the editorials.

Mr. Cohen also offered a dishearteningly believable account of Mr. Trump’s character. Calling the president “a racist,” “a con man” and “a cheat,” Mr. Cohen recounted that “while we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. And he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”

The WP also believed what Jussie Smollett was claiming.

Rather than ignore Mr. Cohen’s allegations, House Republicans might have taken his warning, learned over a decade carrying water for the president: “The more people that follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”

Orange Man Bad! I wonder if the WP will ask about the collusion where Cohen spent time talking to Democrats to get his testimony correct

“What did you talk to Mr. Schiff about?”

Cohen: “I spoke to Mr. Schiff about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing.”

“Woah. Not just what time to show up? Actually what you’re going to talk about?” pic.twitter.com/c07dRqbQ8A

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 27, 2019

That would be collusion and witness tampering. Of course, if we’re to believe Cohen on those things, then what about him saying he’d never been to Prague, or even Czechoslovakia, which would drive a stake into the heart of collusiondrive a stake into the heart of collusion

Michael Cohen denied he’s ever visited Prague and the Czech Republic despite an explosive claim made in the infamous Russia dossier.

The dossier contains allegations against several of Trump’s campaign officials and associates of having secret contacts with Russians during the campaign. The dossier also claims Cohen secretly met Russian officials in Prague to coordinate Kremlin interference in the election and do damage control if the alleged collusion was exposed or if Clinton won.

Huh.

Remarkably Cohen’s testimony exonerates Trump. He says Trump never directly told him to lie, he has no evidence of collusion, and Trump only worked on the Moscow project because he thought he wouldn’t win, which means he wasn’t trying to leverage the presidency for financial gain

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 27, 2019

So, what was the point of the hearing? An attempt to embarrass Trump? Why would they think Trump would care? Why would they think anyone other than political junkies would be interested in this? Further, most know who Trump is. They don’t care. They care that he’s getting things done and trying to get things done that can make their lives better and hold off the creeping Modern Socialism of the Democratic Party.