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By Rahma Ouled Cherif
Rabat – President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has given a congressional testimony confessing to multiple wrongdoings during the decade of his service to Trump.
Cohen swore in before the US Congress’s House Oversight and Reform Committee on February 27 in Washington, D.C. Cohen’s scathing testimony cast Trump as “a racist, a conman and a cheat” who used his inner circle to cover up for any political wrongdoing.
The lawyer’s testimony took seven hours, during which he asserted that he is no longer protecting President Trump.
Cohen, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress previously and was sentenced to prison for three years, used hard evidence to back up his testimony.
As congressional Republicans accused him of being a convicted liar, Cohen maintained his quest to speak up about the goings on in the Trump administration.
The former attorney warned the committee: “I did the same thing that you’re doing now for ten years. And I can only warn people, the more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”
Cohen testified that Trump had said, “Black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.” In response, Republican Mark Meadows referred to Lynne Patton as an African-American woman working for the Trump administration.
Cohen related that he paid a $135,000 settlement from his private account to the porn star Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, to cover up Trump’s secret affair with her per Trump’s guidance, to “avoid any money being traced back to [Trump].”
Cohen brought a copy of a check for $35,000 he received from Trump as a partial reimbursement.
As for taxes, Cohen gave Congress three years, 2011-2013, of Trump’s personal financial statements which Trump had given to Deutsche Bank bank to request a loan.
Cohen claimed that Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, to be listed as one of the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.
In response to the testimony, Trump, who was in Vietnam, expressed his rage over Cohen’s allegations through Twitter, saying Cohen “did bad things unrelated to Trump” and “is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”
Cohen said he regretted his offences: “You make mistakes in life and I’ve owned them and I’ve taken responsibility for them, and I’m paying a huge price, as is my family.”
