Cohen Fingers The President

There are four significant allegations in Michael Cohen’s prepared testimony to Congress today. First, Cohen adds to what we already know about the Stormy Daniels payoff, claiming that Trump instructed Cohen to pay Daniels with his own personal funds in order for Trump to avoid having the money traced back to him. More importantly, Cohen alleges that Trump participated in the cover-up of that crime while he was President by personally writing him a check in August, 2017 as part of Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels’ expense. Cohen has a copy of that check.

Second, Cohen claims that he overheard a phone call from Roger Stone to Trump in July, 2016 where Stone explained that Wikileaks would be dumping a batch of emails that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, to which Trump responded, “wouldn’t that be great”. This, of course, fits in with Trump’s constant denials of collusion which often also curiously contain denials of phone calls.

Third, while admitting Trump never expressly told him to lie to Congress, Trump obviously knew Cohen intended to lie because Cohen’s statement to the committee was cleared by the President’s lawyers.

Finally, Cohen also believes that he overheard Don Jr. report to Trump about the Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016. According to Cohen, “I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying, ‘The meeting is all set’. I remember Mr. Trump saying, ‘OK. Good. Let me know'”.

Cohen also claims that Trump regularly asked for updates on the progress of Trump Tower Moscow until June, 2016. What he does not explain in his statement but may come out in the hearing is who in the Trump Organization he was giving updates to as he pursued the Moscow Tower throughout the rest of 2016.