President Donald Trump and his team vilified former presidential attorney Michael Cohen Wednesday morning ahead of his testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Trump blasted Cohen in a tweet hours before his summit with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, saying:
Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also. He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time. Using Crooked’s lawyer!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2019
Presidential attorney Rudy Giuliani similarly blasted Cohen, saying in a statement to The Washington Post that Cohen’s testimony is “pathetic” and that “This is a lawyer who tapped his own client when he claimed he was being loyal. If you believe him you are a fool.”
Giuliani continued, “Lets see if these Democrats want to ask about his many crimes having nothing to do with anyone but his coterie of business associates with questionable connections.”
NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 13: Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s attorney, walks to the Loews Regency hotel on Park Ave on April 13, 2018 in New York City. Following FBI raids on his home, office and hotel room, the Department of Justice announced that they are placing him under criminal investigation. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
Cohen’s prepared testimony makes explosive claims about his time serving Trump before and during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,” Cohen is expected to declare in his testimony. (RELATED: Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty To Charge In Mueller Probe)
Cohen will charge, without evidence, that Trump knew Roger Stone was speaking with Julian Assange about Wikileaks’ release of Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential election. The former attorney will also charge that Trump had advanced knowledge and directed a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, to stop her from going public with an affair allegation against the president weeks ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen also likely to charge that “Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”
Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images
Cohen pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York in December to evading taxes, knowingly working with Trump to circumvent campaign finance law, and making false statements to Congress on the nature of a Trump Tower Moscow project. Prosecutors targeting Cohen told the court that the aim of the payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal were made to hide his affairs.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders similarly delivered a broadside against Cohen Monday, saying, “disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week, and we can expect more of the same. It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies.”