US Democrats are vowing that the marathon appearance of Donald Trump’s former fixer before congressional investigators is just “the beginning”, heralding intensifying scrutiny of the president’s businesses and his 2016 campaign’s relations with Russia.
During a full day of testimony before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s one-time lawyer, described how he had helped his former boss skirt the law to bolster his cheque book, his campaign and his marriage.
Mr Cohen provided documentary evidence to back up his claims, pointed to possible corroborating witnesses and teased his audience with the possibility of a hitherto unknown investigation into Mr Trump’s dealings by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
“Mr Cohen’s testimony is the beginning of the process — not the end,” declared Elijah Cummings, who became chairman of the oversight committee after Democrats wrested control of the House of Representatives in last year’s midterm elections.
Republicans responded with attacks on the character and credibility of Mr Cohen, who is set to begin serving a three-year prison sentence in May after pleading guilty to crimes including lying to Congress. They accused him of taking part in a Democratic conspiracy to take down the president and gain a book deal in the process.
But Republican analysts were struck by the lack of factual rebuttals by members of their party on the House panel as Mr Cohen described the president as a “racist”, “conman” and “cheat” who pursued a business deal in Russia during the 2016 presidential race and reacted with joy when he received advance word that WikiLeaks was about to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails.
Of particular concern to senior Republicans was the amount of detail provided by Mr Cohen and the fact that he is co-operating with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York as well as Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.
“The words that he [Mr Cohen] said today that would send a chill up my spine at the White House would be: ‘I am in constant contact with the Southern District’,” Chris Christie, the former Republican governor, federal prosecutor and one-time head of Mr Trump’s transition team, told ABC News.
Mr Cohen said prosecutors in the Southern District, which includes Manhattan, were looking into his last communication with Mr Trump, which he said had occurred roughly two months after investigators had raided Mr Cohen’s home and office.
“This topic is actually something that’s being investigated right now by the Southern District of New York,” said Mr Cohen in response to questions by Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democratic representative from Illinois.
So far, only two federal investigations in the Southern District — into the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization’s role in the hush money payments made to women who claimed to have affairs with the president — have been revealed.
Among the documents that Mr Cohen provided the committee was a copy of a $35,000 cheque Mr Trump sent from his personal bank account, which Mr Cohen said was intended to reimburse him for hush money paid to cover up the president’s affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Mr Cohen has pleaded guilty in the Southern District to a campaign finance violation in relation to the payments.
Mr Cohen also provided the most detailed account to date of the scheme, which he said involved both Mr Trump, and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, who has received immunity from prosecutors to testify.
Mr Weisselberg was one of several individuals, not widely familiar to the American public, whose names were repeatedly mentioned by Mr Cohen — potentially setting the stage for them to become future committee witnesses. Others included Matthew Calamari and Ron Lieberman — two other Trump Organization employees — and David Pecker, chairman of American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer.
Mr Cohen alleged that Mr Trump manipulated the value of his assets for financial gain — reducing his estimates of his own worth when it came time to pay his local tax bill and increasing them when he was seeking to reduce his insurance premiums.
Mr Cohen said Mr Trump had directed him to threaten people or entities on his behalf as many as 500 times over the course of their time working together — usually with litigation or intimidation.
Asked about whether Mr Trump could have colluded with Moscow, Mr Cohen said that Mr Trump’s “desire to win would have him work with anyone” — including a foreign adversary. He said there was “something odd about the back-and-forth praise with President [Vladimir] Putin”, adding: “there are just so many dots that all seem to lead to the same direction”.
He said that he had briefed Mr Trump and his children, Don Jr and Ivanka, repeatedly during the 2016 campaign about continued plans for a Trump Tower Moscow, and said that the president’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, had edited portions of earlier testimony Mr Cohen gave to Congress about the timeline of the project.
In a statement, Mr Sekulow called Mr Cohen’s allegation about the revised testimony “completely false”.
Mr Cohen also suggested that Mr Trump had known in advance about a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in New York between his son, Don Jr; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his campaign manager, Paul Manafort; and a Russian lawyer.
At times, the hearing turned contentious with Republican and Democratic members shouting over one another and interrupting, as some Republicans on the committee attempted to discredit their Democratic colleagues as well as the star witness.
While Mr Cohen at times appeared humbled, he held his own during Republican questioning, appearing at times to catch his questioners off-guard.
Republican James Comer noted that Mr Cohen had called Mr Trump a “con”. “What would you call yourself?” he asked.
“A fool,” Mr Cohen replied without missing a beat.
By the end of the day, the president’s former fixer appeared slightly deflated — eyes sunken, hair rumpled — the glint slowly waning from his eyes. When Mr Cummings delivered his closing remarks, expressing hope that America would see both a “better Michael Cohen” and a “better Donald Trump”, Mr Cohen began tearing up.
Doug Heye, a former House Republican leadership aide, said he expected after the hearing, Democrats would follow the lead of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman Democratic congresswoman from New York, who questioned Mr Cohen about Mr Trump’s financial statements and the implications for his taxes. “She showed exactly where this is going to be going in the future: and that’s the Trump tax returns.”
Mr Heye added that it was “very noticeable that Republicans were not defending Trump”.
“If you are one of the [Republican] members do you get an angry phone call from the president saying: ‘why weren’t you standing up for me?’” he asked.
