Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is out to crush the image that the president of USA has struggled to make. Some claims he has made are so blistering and dampening others are just a confirmation of what he is ever believed to be but he keeps denying.
He shocked people at congress with his allegations of racism, lies, pay offs and cover ups to paint a damning picture of Michael Cohen’s former boss.
Cohen was one of Trump’s closest aides but turned against him last year and is cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He begins serving a three-year prison sentence in May.
Trump – and his Republican backers – have accused Cohen of lying in a bid to reduce his prison sentence.
1.The US President ‘is a racist‘
“Mr Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr Trump court white supremacists and bigots.
“You have heard him call poorer countries ‘s***holes’.
“In private, he is even worse.
2.Trump’s election bid ‘was a PR stunt‘
“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great.
“He had no desire to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his weather and power.
“Mr Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be ‘the greatest infomercial in political history’.
3.He ‘knew about the Stormy Daniels payoff‘
“He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it.
“Mr Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity line of credit to avoid money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.
“I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 pursuant to the cover up… to reimburse me for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf.”
4.Billionaire Trump’s is a ‘tax dodger’
“It was my experience that Mr Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”
5.Cohen was ‘told to threaten Trump’s schools’
“I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but direct me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.
“I’m giving the committee today copies of a letter I sent at Mr Trump’s direction threatening these schools with civil and criminal actions if Mr Trump’s grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without his permission.”
6.Donald apparently doesn’t have a high opinion of his own son
“Mr Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr had the worst judgement of anyone in the world.”
7.Trump ‘knew about the Democratic email leak’
“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. The answer is yes.
“Mr Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great’.”
8.’He lied about his Russian investment plan‘
“To be clear, Mr Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it.
“He lied about it because he never expected to win the election.
“He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”
9.Trump’s excuse to dodge the draft in Vietnam is ‘fake’
“Mr Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery.
“He finished the conversation with the following comment: ‘You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam’.
The White House had no comment on Cohen’s testimony but on Wednesday Trump accused his former employee of lying.
“He did bad things unrelated to Trump,” the president Tweeted. “He is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”
Republican lawmakers at the hearing tried to undermine Cohen, portraying him as an irredeemable liar who had benefited from financial crimes he pleaded guilty to last year, and saying the hearing was an opening gambit in a Democratic push to impeach Trump.
“I don’t believe Michael Cohen is capable of telling the truth,” said Republican Representative James Comer.