“I recorded him because he has a history of not paying.” Good luck for Trump.
Cohen says he has heard rumors of a tape of Trump striking Melania in an elevator, but doesn’t believe it exists.
He also denies there being a love child, but admits there was a payout made over one.
He says Trump told him to threaten people over 500 times.
In the few minutes that I’ve been able to watch, I’ve seen 3 Republicans question Cohen: Jordan, Higgins, and Norman. All 3 are complete assholes in their questioning. Are the other Pubs the same?
All of them except Amash have been 100% attacking Cohen instead of asking about Trump.
Miller (R-WV) should just boil it all down to “Benghazi!”
I’m watching the hearing live right now. I feel like all the Republicans on the Committee are indicting themselves, are confessing to being hypocrites and traitors.
I’ve already nominated Nancy Pelosi and Robert Mueller for the Nobel Peace Prize. I’d like to nominate Michael Cohen also.
In Watergate, it took 2 years of investigative reporting, hearings, subpoenas and SCOTUS decisions to draw a connection between the burglars and Nixon.
What happened today would be as if John Dean walked in to the Watergate hearing with a cancelled check from Nixon to the burglars, with “hush money” on the memo line.
I think the Stormy Daniels payoff is the smokiest of smoking guns today. Everything else is shady business practice and despicable personal behavior that we knew about already.
Cohen used the LLC to pay off Stormy so his wife wouldn’t know about it, and Trump knew this.
On the one hand, I am enjoying this. It’s damning, and about fucking time.
On the other hand, I have no confidence that anything at all will come of it.
Right now I’m watching Robin Kelly (Dem). She’s wasting minutes repeating what we already knew years ago. :smack: Give the credit to the R’s who at least try to maximize bang (albeit a bang of dung, lies and treason) for their minutes.
ETA: “Everything had to go through Trump.”
Green now trying to attack Cohen for cooperating with the committee.
My assumption was that she was getting him to establish answers clearly on this record.
So, according to the Republicans:
Cohen’s a liar. We KNOW he’s a liar, because he lied in order to cover up Trump’s criminal payoffs, and to cover up Trump’s dealings with Russian mobsters.
Why don’t the Republicans on this committee just repeatedly punch themselves in the face? It would be just as distracting and productive.
With regards to the line of questioning about Cohen possibly getting a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation, I’m telepathically sending him the response: “Tell the truth, reduced jail time? Not seeing a downside.”
Need a BIG t-shirt to stick that on …
I love that! Who said it?
Cohen says he paid to have online polls rigged at Trump’s direction.
Jamie Raskin, D-MD.
He did say that earlier.
(paraphrase) “I don’t believe there’s anybody out there who believes I would pay $130,000 out of my own pocket for Trump’s benefit.”
Cool, my psychic powers are working well today. (Not watching live, just monitoring this thread and The NY Times live tweets)