The Trump campaign dismissed Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee as “worthless” and questioned why he was even sworn in since he has previously admitted to lying to Congress.
“Michael Cohen is a felon, a disbarred lawyer, and a convicted perjurer, who lied to both Congress and the Special Counsel in a ‘deliberate and premeditated’ fashion according to the Special Counsel’s Office,” Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “Now he offers what he says is evidence, but the only support for that is his own testimony, which has proven before to be worthless.”
Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations regarding hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to two women who claimed they were involved in affairs with Trump. Cohen claimed Wednesday that Trump was aware of the payments and told the panel he was reimbursed by Trump for the hush-money payments while Trump was president.
Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison for his crimes, also admitted in November he lied to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in 2017 regarding a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
“As noted by the Southern District of New York, Cohen’s wide array of crimes were ‘marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life’ and his ‘instinct to blame others is strong.’ Prosecutors said his actions were to ensure that he would ‘profit personally, build his own power, and enhance his level of influence.’ This is the same Michael Cohen who has admitted that he lied to Congress previously. Why did they even bother to swear him in this time?” McEnany said.
Meanwhile, Trump is in Hanoi, Vietnam, meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he works toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. The two leaders met in June 2018, at which time they signed a declaration to “work toward complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula and work toward “a lasting and stable peace regime.”
Before Cohen’s testimony, Trump accused Cohen of lying to “reduce his prison time” and said he “did bad things unrelated to Trump.”
