Michael Cohen Testimony: Here's What We Know So Far
By: Kayla Pasacreta
Everyone around America has their popcorn ready today. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and “fixer” started his round of 3-day testimonies to Congress yesterday. Wednesday, Cohen will testify in a hearing to Congress that will be open to the public.
“He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,” - Michael Cohen on Trump
Here’s the first bombshells of the day:
The check: CNN obtained the $35k check Cohen will be presenting to Congress. Why this matters: the check, signed by Donald Trump on August 1, 2017, does not appear to have a memo but Cohen says this is part of his reimbursement for the hush money he paid Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had an affair with Donald Trump during his marriage to Melania. If this check was actually reimbursement for the hush money, this means Trump may have broken campaign finance laws, and it would also catch Trump in a pretty damning lie. Just last April, Trump said he did not know about the hush money payment.
Did Trump, um, pay to make it seem like portraits of himself got the highest bid in auctions?
In Cohen’s written testimony, he states, “Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event…the objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000.” In typical Trump nature, there’s always a tweet":
Cohen believes Trump is a racist: In the testimony transcript, Cohen details an incident of the two driving through a “struggling” neighborhood in Chicago. He paraphrases the conversation:
“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.
And yet I continued to work for him.”
*We will continue to update this article as the hearing goes on.
