Republicans seem to think that Trumps lying, cheating, being a racist, sexual predator, kowtowing to Putin and providing false information to the government and bankers is a waste of time. This is the same party that made a big deal about Obama wearing a brown suit and playing hoops.
12
Cohen came off as a crooked Mafia-style mensch who wants to reform his life as just a mensch. I hope he is able to accomplish that.
The Republicans are trying to squash Cohen like a bug, but Gail made all the right points... they are paying no attention to the extraordinarily flawed Individual 1 Behind The Curtain.
4
The irony and hypocrisy of Republicans telling Michael Cohen repeatedly that he is a confessed liar and listening to his testimony was a waste of their time is truly stunning.
After all, these same people fanatically support the biggest liar of them all: Their leader, President Donald Trump.
10
Haha, Chip Roy, ghostwriter for Rick Perry!
3
Nobody cares about the payments to porn stars and playmates. Waiting to see if there is something more . . . .
4
Maybe this is what they talked about behind closed doors in Helsinki: dictatoring 101. Putin is probably the only person Trump listens to closely without interrupting.
1
I watched the hearing yesterday with interest. With the Republicans trying their best to discredit a man who is about to go to jail for three years, the one question that kept surfacing for me was...how do these people get elected to Congress? For quite a few, Jim Jorden, Mark Meadows, and Paul Gosar, who have enough garbage in their own pasts, one would think they’d have enough common sense to keep quiet. Sadly lacking in this country it seems, is common sense.
9
Republicans can call Cohen a "convicted liar" and that's true. But they can't say he's lying about Trump with any conviction, because clearly he is not, nor is he lying about Trump, Jr.
The Republican smokescreen pretty much fell flat. I'll be interested to see what my Republican-voting neighbors say now.
7
Mr. Cohen's testimony was, to me, a mere side-show to the embarrassment that Trump received from a repressive dictator and miscreant named Kim Jun Un, and, in turn, weakened the US and world peace.
6
Representative Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the committee, even brought up Women for Cohen, an account put up to promote his little-known role as a “sex symbol.”
There are credible allegations that Rep. Jim Jordan (R), a former wrestling coach at OSU, knew that a team doctor was sexually abusing student athletes yet did nothing. Why he of all people thinks he is in a position to spout off about Cohen's morality is beyond me.
20
Did anyone else find it chilling when Cohen suggested that Trump won't accept defeat if he loses in 2020? Looks like we've got our very own Robert Mugabe here.
18
One thing to be said in the Republicans' favor: they don't show a great deal of finesse at being crass political hacks. Unfortunately, though, the result of their overt, reality-distorting childishness is that the public's capacity for suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond its limit. I'm referring to whether anyone still buys the idea that they're committed to defense of the Constitution and constructive governance. But maybe the Republicans in Congress don't really care what anyone thinks right now. Maybe they figure that, come election time, they can whitewash everything with enough ad buys.
12
It might not have been a new revelation, but I can't get enough of his using money from the Trump Foundation to pay for a phony bid on a painting of himself. Good luck topping that, SNL.
19
Mr. Cohen, how can we believe your testimony today when you are going to prison shortly for among other things, lying to Congress?
What he should have answered:
Because I've already plead guilty to that lying and I know that more lying will only increase my jail time. Besides, the lying I did was at the behest and with the intent to protect the president who is as big a liar as anyone who's walked this earth and that is well documented. His presidency and his life are built on lies and if you have proof that anything I've said or will say here about this president is a lie, you're welcome to challenge me on it.
7
Thought Gail would make this funnier. She usually does. Hard to keep being funny about Trump, though
2
The Dems should have had Stormy stand behind Michael as Exhibit 1 next to the check.
7
The Trump Mob Organization must have a lot more people in the country cowed, cornered, intimidated and threatened into keeping their mouths shut about growing up and working alongside Donald Trump than we realize.
We read very little information coming from former classmates at the schools Trump attended, or from Fordham or the University of Pennsylvania. No workers stiffed over their weekly paychecks have stepped forward. Bankers told by the Corporate Office not to deal with Trump, common knowledge in the financial world, have stayed silent. Any and all of these people across the spectrum of American life who crossed paths with Trump could have stepped up and warned the American public about Trump, but they were afraid. The warnings were muffled, and obviously never made it to the GOP.
Now the GOP is imploding as a result of their institutional incuriosity. Their ignorance about the man they elevated to the Presidency of the United States of America was on full display at the Cohen Testimony. The whole world saw the GOP on CNN and laughed at their incompetence.
8
@BBB - We knew about the stiffed contractors and about the phony university, we knew about the way he treated women. Sadly there are enough ignorant bigots out there who think those are his most endearing qualities.
3
“I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, ‘Don’t bother watching,’” said Representative Chip Roy.
Another example of a Congressman telling his “woman” what to do.
14
There should be a Surgeon General's warning when going to work for Trump. Look at the people who left, got arrested or had their lives ruined by working for this man. If Cohen did not make the payoffs on Trump's behalf he would not be going to jail.
The evidence shows that working for Trump is dangerous.
7
As Michael Cohen gave his introductory comments, I found myself comparing him to Brett Kavanaugh. Though in a much more precarious position Cohen seemed calmer and less melodramatic. I'm beginning to think the GOP lacks the emotional intelligence to distinguish honest emotion from dramatics.
10
"'I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, ‘Don’t bother watching,’ said Representative Chip Roy."
Yeah. Just go back to being beautiful.
10
Gail, thanks
One issue that never came up with Cohen, is Trump's LD,
that is his learning disability. Cohen was never asked if he thought that the President had a learning disability, LD. Why not?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
He said, Trump was a racist, a conman and a cheat, not LD.
Why not ask about how Trump thinks and if has trouble learning?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps many voters are actually attracted to Trump because he presents things in SIMPLISTIC ways. But this is not always good.
I hope that Times writers will zero in on Trump's LD problem.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2
Only one person defended Trump's character: Cohen when said Trump would never hit his wife. Is there a chance that he defended Trump the same way Trump defends Putin, MBS, Kim Jong-un and, now, the terrible witch hunt "Bibi" is being subjected to.
So Cohen has listed Trump’s defects, in part. But this whole exercise is just a trailer or warm-up act introducing the main event. Which isn’t about Trump.
The main event is the 85% of Republicans, including their Congressional representatives, who subscribe to complete nonsense promulgated by the most successful brainwashing apparatus since Goebbels and the rise of Fascism. Whaddawe do about them? Can we dismantle this machine? Can we open the windows and let sanity return?
12
Gail, I just spent my morning having a root canal. That was nothing compared to listening to the dental assistant. She informed me that if Trump could get his wall immediately, then he would be free to get through that health care bill, which would be spectacular. She just didn't understand how he had known that Washington was filled with so many corrupt politicians before he got there (apparently, she didn't). She was so proud he was up there doing the best job even though those Democrats just couldn't see it. I was speechless. I kept waiting for the punch line, but it never came. So, thank you, for this article. I read it when I got home and it has helped me get over the shock of my morning.
16
Yesterday was the first time I saw Jim Jordan in action - he's a walking advertisement for everything that's wrong with the republican party. And he's a republican leader? I hope they keep putting him on TV. Democrats will win in a cakewalk in 2020.
12
"And introduce a C student with a sense of humor who could announce he’s proud to be following in the presidential footsteps of intellectual mediocrity."
Even more appropriate for these footsteps, perhaps, an F student with a very rich father.
12
You know how when you make a serious mistake in your life, that it can haunt you, perhaps for years? Maybe even for your whole life?
America made a very serious mistake back in November 2016. And it is haunting us now, in the worst way.
It seems unlikely that we will be rid of Trump before early 2021 (if then). We will endure at least two more years of this horror show.
The question we have to ask is whether or not the pain of four years of a Trump presidency will be enough to set us straight. Will it be enough to get us back to at least the remote vicinity of being responsible citizens of the world?
I don't know. I really just don't know.
But I still hope for the best. What else do we have, if not hope?
16
Some stuff of substance, but not much, was learned from this hearing. It's real purpose, I believe, especially given the unnecessary Democratic grandstanding (it was their investigative hearing after all), was to put Cohen before the court of public opinion and make it clear that the majority in the House believes the President to be a dangerous man. I think they did a pretty good job, although it would have been better without the personal promotion.
One thing I learned: I now have tremendous respect for Elijah Cummings about whom I knew very little before. He is a great legislator who believes in the great American democratic tradition.
6
I’m sick of the attacks against Trump. He is certainly a known quantity but Republicans will obviously stick with him no matter what, because all they care about is their short term money interest. They are not smart enough to do anything else, so there is no point in pretending anything else will sway them and they have a stranglehold on the country.
1
Suddenly all the Republicans in the room are concerned about whether somebody is a liar. The 8,000+ and counting fabrications Trump has woven the past 2 years are not a problem, they're just Trump speaking his mind, telling it like it is, Trump being Trump. Michael Cohen shuffles to the podium, his prison shackles clinking loudly, and suddenly Jim Jordan doesn't trust him if he says the sun rises in the east.
Michael Cohen was convicted, in part, for lying to Congress. Now he is recanting those lies, and the Republicans say those recantations are a lie. Well, if they are a lie, then he must have been telling the truth in the first place, otherwise they wouldn't be a lie. But, if he was telling the truth in the first place, then why was he convicted of lying to Congress? You can't have it both ways... he was lying when he said what he said the first time around, and now that's he's recanting those lies..... he's still lying.
I have to give the Republicans credit, though, because they absolutely nailed it when they described what this hearing was all about: a transparent Democratic effort to start the process of removing Donald Trump from office. Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! That is exactly what this is and should be about.
Finally, Republicans and Democrats agreeing on something...
16
If you had to choose between Trump and Cohen, who would you trust? I can’t think of anyone with less integrity than Trump. Trump is a permanent stain on our country.
18
The best thing that can come of this Administration would be the total and utter frustration of all charlatans, billionaires and executive producers from ever running for public office.
Once you serve the public, inquiring minds want to know.
6
It is interesting to see that the Republican questioners claim Cohen should not be believed because he lied to Congress, is a felon and will soon be going to prison. In other words, why should the public believe a liar? That was the basis for their questioning.
What they seem to forget is that Cohen admitted he lied to Congress about the Moscow real estate project Trump was pursuing when he was securing the Republican nomination in 2016-- when Trump was consistently denying his organization was undertaking any such actions-- and the lies were all to protect Trump. Logically then, Cohen's Republican inquisitors therefore must be in agreement that the substance of Cohen's prior Trump-favorable Congressional testimony is NOT true.
For this reason they made no effort to defend Trump at the hearing. Could this be because they know that Cohen's original Congressional testimony favorable to Trump was false and therefore his current testimony logically has to be true and therefore must be believed? The Republican's cognitive dissonance is telling and it is amazing that they think their sleight- of- hand tactics could fool anyone!
4
And the Republican members of Congress still support the President? How is that possible?
Next you know they'll start running re-election television ads featuring well know criminals, white nationalists, and other assorted sleazeballs. There must be some political traction here that I don't understand but they fully comprehend.
4
Cohen did not implicate Trump in crimes.
He testified that he knew of no unlawful collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Coen testified that Trump did not instruct him to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
He testified that Trump continued attempts to negotiate the Trump Tower Moscow while campaign for president. That was not illegal.
Cohen testified that Trump directed him to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels and then reimbursed him for it. That was not illegal, since the money did not come from campaign contributions.
He testified that Trump knew about the Trump Tower Meeting in advance. That was not illegal.
Cohen testified that Roger Stone told Trump that WikiLeaks planned to dump emails damaging to Hillary Clinton. Hearing this was not illegal.
@William Case
Wow! Talk about seeing only what you want to see! Your response is akin to the opposite of psychological “mental filtering” (a cognitive distortion): choosing positive details and magnifying those details while filtering out all negative details of that situation.
And of course some of those “positive” details are very arguably negative ones. The facts suggest that, at the very least, the burden of proof is on you to show why you think those details are “positive.”
2
Special treatment in Washington: Most convicted criminals are walked away, shackled, to prison on their sentencing date... This bozo bought himself time, then an extra month to recup from surgery, and now the Dems are trotting him around like Witness Number One in Mueller's sad sago of nothing-to-see-here? This man is a convicted criminal. He should serve his time before being trotted out as a showpony to Congress. He still doesn't realize the harm he has done to the American people, not just his own family. Lock Him UP, already... (Too bad McCabe and Comey are not following.)
1
I'm just afraid that with this whole spectacle today we've reached Peak Deconstructionism.
There is no truth, there are no facts--there are only subjective points of view, one idea of the world going up against another idea of the world, with the issue to be decided not by truth or by evidence, no matter how concrete, but by power and force.
Not a single person who didn't already think Trump is a crook was suddenly convinced by Cohen's testimony today. And those who do think so would have without any checks containing damning signatures. But to those who love Annoying Orange, that evidence is fake news, planted, irrelevant.
When the opposing sides can't even agree on a definition of reality, then the contest eventually results in bloody bodies in the streets and across the hillsides (see Venezuela). And I'm afraid that's exactly where we're headed.
1
I like the part of Cohen's testimony which I caught on my car radio driving to work this morning: A republican congressman said to Cohen something to the effect that you have called the president a liar, cheat...what would you call yourself? Cohen quickly answered "a fool."
Anyone who believes in Trump is a fool. Cohen described why very compellingly and convincingly.
16
Gail,
Trust me, the people in Dripping aren't all ridiculous Trumpers.
This charade exposed all of the Republicans for the lock-step Trump clones they are. That's the real expose. The fact that Trump is a racist, liar, con man, these were all known facts before his base voted him in, and continue to defend him.
The whole Vietnam debacle was a diversionary tactic and a huge waste of millions of our dollars.
9
If all your friends and associates are liars and criminals you can’t really be the only good one standing. More likely: you are a truly gifted bully who does his own makeup and tweets.
3
Maybe Collins wouldn't find this slightly amusing if Mr Cohen ripped into her the way he did other joiurnalists. Ya know the plonkers without the big connections.
That were right all along.
My rep Tom Reed will go along to the bitter end. Muttering about firing bureaucrats and Iran. Lockheed Martin on the phone Tom, will you pick up?
I saw a lot of Republicans entering into the record articles about Cohen from high-minded outlets like this fine publication, WaPo, Vanity Fair, etc. But it’s so confusing — why are they relying on the fake news liberal media? They didn’t enter any publications from Drudge, InfoWars, Fox, Daily Stormer, etc. I wonder why?
9
Michael Cohen started off his testimony by declaring that the president of the United States was “a racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat.” The Republicans who were supposed to be grilling him
http://election.result.pk/
I think my favorite part was Cohen's body language. Between the head shrugs and the eye rolls, you half expected Cohen to drop a "Are you [expletive] kidding me?" at the Republican committee members. He didn't. Cohen did however call them out. First as being Trump's lackeys. And second, for not asking any questions about Trump in a hearing entirely dedicated to talking about Trump. Cohen also managed to call Trump a pathological liar under oath. That takes some finesse.
In any event, the most interesting parts were the moments of direct examination. Not exactly material worthy of John Grisham novel. However, Democrats got enough ammunition out of Cohen for a Rambo style subpoena run. Ivanka and Don Jr. are obviously on the list. The more important name that kept coming up though was Allen Weisselberg, Trump Organizations CFO. Cohen essentially painted a legal bull's eye on Trump's accountant. If Weisselberg isn't lawyered up already, he better move fast.
5
Can we please nominate Rep. Elijah Cummings for a Nobel Peace Prize??
6
Even Gail Collins has trouble finding anything funny about this mess.
1
I was waiting for Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows to start screaming “Benghazi!”
Sometimes, life lets you down.
10
The French have a word for Ms. Lynne Patton: Collabo, short for "collaborateur". Goes back to WW II. Sort of like "Uncle Tom" but with no extenuating circumstances to sort of tone it down.
2
Nobel Peace Prize for his resignation.
3
Nobody can say that trump is not sleazy, I'll accept it if you say that it doesn't bother you or that he may be sleazy but he's your kind of sleazy. But if you say that he is not sleazy then you are either lying or delusional. trump earned his nickname "Sleazy Boy" fair and square.
4
Since Trump loves Putin so much, he and his family should move to a Dacha in Siberia (with a big T over the door), before the landslide of Subpoenas arrive at his front door.
3
I'm gonna send a crack team of private investigators to Hawaii to look for Trump's real college transcripts and SAT scores. And I know an African-American, too.
4
More wasted time as the Democrats try to undo the results of an election where the “chosen one” failed to deliver.
80% of Americans could not care less if President Trump - as a private citizen - had sex with a porn star (I sure would if I could afford it), or if he laid the porn star to shut up and go away, (if I had billions, I would have paid for that too).
We worry instead about the millions of illegal aliens invading America; the thugs killing our police; and the trillion dollar deficit.
@Average Voter: the trillion dollar deficit is due to Trump's tax cut for the rich who didn't need it anyway. Trump blew it. It wasn't needed, and he lost the middle class on that one. Illegal immigration is the lowest it has been in years. There is no crisis on the border.
Not sure where you get your info from, or if you are in fact a voter.
1
@Average Voter Don't forget Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.
Why Papua New Guinea?
No doubt there are good honest tribal leaders there,
who do not deserve to have their place fouled-up
with a bunch of deceitful self-interested cheats.
Maybe some big uninhabited island could be found...
Hey, if he gets us out of Afghanistan after what? 18 years and 3 Trillion spent on nothing but corrupt government puppets, I say give him the fahrshlugginer prize. Ain't worth much anyway. They gave it to Kissinger for ending a war he extended and they gave it to Obama for being the first black president. Getting us out of Afghanistan is at least a real accomplishment.
"...all we got was one white male representative after another..." Seriously, Gail? You, as usual, make some great points, but when you stoop to pitiful lines like that, feeding into the tiresome "old white male" trope of evil, you lose credibility. You can do better.
1
@George S - It's the truth isn't it?
1
@DR
Physically yes, but it’s used as a perjorative, here and elsewhere.
1
Where is Charles Dickens when you need him?
That hearing was a comedy of lies and strange exhibits
on the part of the GOP. Jordan, Meadows, Green, and
others were clearly trying out for lead role as
President Trump's new FIXER -in-Chief - aka Junkyard Dog.
Other GOP reps got tired of chanting Liar, Liar and ceded their
time to Jordan and Meadows. Jordan and Meadows are both very good at doing the pit bull thing.
Meadows also performed a brilliant and LOUD soliloquy and on
how hurt he was at anyone thinking he was a racist. He had a black woman standing behind him to prove Trump wasn't a racist,
and Meadows himself has mixed race grandchildren and that is
incontrovertible PROOF that he could not be a racist EVER. Period. PERIOD. (I wonder whether he supported -or objected to -the Birther 'thing" about Obama.)
Jordan was the chief Liar, Liar pit. He also played let- me- catch -you- in- a -lie during this hearing, Mr. Cohen. You say you didn't want to work in the White House? Wait. WAIT. Somebody call the U.S. Marshals? We've heard otherwise, which CLEARLY proves your motive for turning on Trump.
Jordan himself told the biggest lie of the hearing, one that was designed to shame the chairman, Mr. Cumming. 'So this is your first democratic hearing of this committee? With a convicted felon giving testimony? When we have so many other things to take? ' That was the short version of Jordan's big lie.
I know, Jordan isn't under oath.
5
@SCZ
It turns out that what proves Meadows is not a racist are his mixed race nieces and nephews. If that isn’t proof, what is? Oh, and there’s that video clip of Meadows saying he’ and his GOP will send Obama back to Kenya,
‘“ or wherever he came from.”
Then he laughed uproariously.
You see? Meadows is the MOST
unracist person out there - except for Trump.
@SCZ
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/28/video-mark-meadows-saying-send-obama-home-kenya-resurfaces-hours-after-hes-accused-racist-stunt/
There is your answer to the Obama birther question.
Here's the one fact that will get through even to Trump supporters: Trump is a coward. Everyone knows he's a bully. No one cares. Revealing that someone is a bully is meaningless. But what are bullies at heart? Cowards!
You take down a bully not by complaining about his bluster and tactics and how he stole your lunch money. You take down a bully by demonstrating in front of all his followers that he is a coward.
Trump is a coward. He avoids fights and confrontations at all costs because he is a coward. He picks on the weak and vulnerable because he is a coward. He never actually fires anyone because he is a coward. It is his defining characteristic. He hides it, is all. Take away his camouflage, strip him bare, and everyone will see: Trump is a coward.
6
The most remarkable thing I saw yesterday is that Trump created $4 billion out of thin air. I was a commercial lender for a long while. If someone presented those statements to me I would turn around and run. They did not follow general accounting principals and did not have the clarifications as footnotes but were embedded in the body of the statement.
You would need substantial backup in terms of additional financial statements, bank statements, brokerage statements, appraisals among other things.
I understand why they did not let him buy the Bills.
5
@Mark Smith Russian oligarchs are hard to enter into standard accounting sheets. Then again one could consider any such entry a poison pill.
One of my favorite comments came after the hearing when a Republican committee member while being interviewed by PBS said something like this in defense of the President in regards to the hush money, "Michael Cohen was his lawyer and should have advised the President that the payments were illegal." Apparently this was all Cohen's fault. The President had been duped into this behavior by an unscrupulous lawyer.
As I watched, something like a death rattle emerged, "That's the point Congressman. The President and Cohen engaged in illegal activities and lied about it." The Congressman, however, seemed quite pleased with himself in believing that he had deflected blame away from the President with his juicy rationalization. Time to take your hammer out of your pocket Congressman. Hit yourself over the head with it and repeat as necessary. "And the ants go marching down the drain to get out of the rain."
8
Dirty Don threatens legal action to keep his SAT scores secret? How did the guy who "knows a lot of words" get into Wharton? Did dad donate a wing to the library? He wants (wanted) a Nobel Peace Prize because of his obsession with Obama. Since the North Korea thing didn't work out, maybe Dirty Don should run for president... of the Harvard Law Review.
7
@Joe I am guessing he got into Wharton the same way Kushner got into Harvard.
1
I can only surmise that Chip Roy did not want his wife to witness the unvarnished truth.
Re: Trump's dining with Mr. Kim:
News reports have said that Kim Jong-Un not only did he bring his own food with him from North Korea, he also brought the "china" and eating utensils to go along with the food he brought with him. Not that Leader Kim is the least bit paranoid, mind you.
Now the big question is; Did President Trump eat kimchi with Dear Leader, or did he dine on his own, brought-from-the-good-ole-US-of-A Big Mac 'n' Cheese? And, if so, how is that "dining together?"
9
Gail, no mention of the Fake President’s “creative “, but criminal (of course), intentional subversion of his very own charitable foundation? The Narcissist-in-Chief not only deceitfully arranged for his portrait at that auction to achieve the highest winning bid amongst all the items offered, to further his unbounded ego, through the use of a straw-purchaser, but illegally paid for the portrait using funds from his charitable foundation. The “fruit” of Trump’s crime gloriously hangs in one of Trump’s luxury properties according to his former lawyer/fixer. You could have done a complete column on just this one incident!
4
The Republicans made it clear, saying to Mr. Cohen's face that he was a liar.
Wonder what they say to Mr. Trump's face?
5
Here's the weird, accidentally brillian thing about Trump. By his relentless petty, greedy, hateful, shameless, incompetent and narcissistic behavior over the past 2 + years, he has almost innoculated himself against being rocked by hits like Cohen's.
Did anyone really doubt Trump was a liar, a cheat, a con man, and a scoundrel? Did anyone really think no crimes were ever committed by him or at his direction? Did anyone really think he was a financial genius?
He campaigned from the gutter. Are people really shocked that he's mired in filth?
7
I am consistently flabbergasted as to why the stolid burghers of places like Dripping Springs, TX vote for candidates who are knowingly protecting a pliant tool of the Russian government. who would sell out America to the highest-bidding oligarch in a heartbeat, and may have already done so. They know very well that the "President" is a liar, cheater, deadbeat serial adulterer and a traitor, but they will defend him to their dying breath. What's in it for therm? What in Sam Houston goes through these folks' tiny brain?
7
“ ... all we got was one white male representative after another ...”
Thataway Gail, make every white male reader feel demonized, and then wonder why they vote against you.
Remarkable how little the president seems to understand what really matters in a leader. He believes it is all about pedigree and surface. He had to pretend he had the best grades at the best schools. He has the most money. He is worthy of a Nobel. Who cares? He has no understanding about anything that truly matters - government, international relations, race, the environment, healthcare........
Everyone who voted for him did so knowing trump is a racist and a liar. He flogged the birth certificate movement long after it was just a stupid joke.
After two years the world knows he is a con man. Cohen showed us the paperwork.
3
"Certainly not a surprise that Trump doesn’t want to publicize the details of his academic career. But still a great question to keep harping on, if only because it will drive him completely nuts."
Long-form report cards?
5
@b fagan. Trump insisted that Obama release not only his birth certificate, but his transcript from Harvard.
3
The actions of many republicans at the Cohen hearing was a lesson in how to descend into the deepest rings of hell. I didn’t believe anyone could sink lower than using an African Americans can woman as a prop. The Trump waxed poetic about his bromance with yet another dictator. His rambling presser was an embarrassment as a leader and as a human. His disrespect of Otto Warmbier was shameful and he used the Warmbier family as a prop at the SOTU. Trump is illiterate, cold hearted and a thug. His family code is imprinted in each of his progeny. They cannot fall fast enough.
10
So embarrassed! Rep. Chip Roy is a gerrymandered product. I'm from Dripping Springs, and yes for sure it's Cruz/Trump country, but not all of us! When Rep. Chip Roy said he told his beautiful wife to not watch the hearings, here's the message I get from him: women are all about looks, being obedient, and staying uninformed.
8
From the hissing and shrieking by the GOP, I was relieved that Cohen made it out of the room on two feet. Jack Ruby-esque images swayed in my head.
3
"To be fair, one Republican committee member did demur, and brought in a black government appointee to stand there and look diverse."
You just can't make this stuff up.
7
Who cares about his taxes and net worth. I want to know what his SAT scores were!
2
It was rich watching Trump Republicans who have defended Trump's con artist ways of making money, chastising Cohen for wanting to make money from a book.
It was even richer defending a pathological liar by calling Cohen a pathological liar!
The highlight of this testimony was when Cohen warned Republicans that they are a few steps away from becoming Cohens. Looking forward that their testimony.
6
My favorite part of the hearing was the sign that the Republicans displayed with a picture of Cohen and the tag line “Liar, liar, pants s on fire”. The Republicans have a sense of the ridiculous and the obvious. Who knew?
3
It was my hope that this Summit would produce a dramatic enough optic that Trump would receive a Nobel Peace Prize.That would ensure the Grand Parade, that he so dearly wants and maybe many more throughout the South. This is a needy, challenged man with red buttons at his disposal. It is a bad idea to poke the bear with a sharp stick for the next two years. We should encourage his golf and pray for God's mercy as the republicans seem to have been struck dumb.
4
“I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, ‘Don’t bother watching,’” said Representative Chip Roy.
This is real? Dripping Springs???
Hopefully the no-name "beautiful wife" watched anyway.
4
@rainbow Oh yes, sadly, it is real. I'm from there, and Chip Roy is a gerrymandered product. It's MAGA country, once you get west of Austin.
2
Mr Cohen should begin any interview or testimony with the answer to one of the questions posed yesterday which was totally contradicted by NBC last August.
Who is paying Lanny Davis? Is he working for free? Answer was totally contradicted by NBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/michael-cohen-lawyer-starts-gofundme-for-former-trump-attorney.html
While not defending anything Mr Trump has done or not done, The Washington establishment and Mr Cohen needs to answer this question truthfully.
Who funded the "GoFundMe" account?
No Peace Prize for Trump. Just a complete waste of time
because of poor preparation. You would think Pompeo
would not have let this happen, but he is just another
member of Trump's B-Team.
2
This just in from residents of Papua New Guinea:
"Do not...repeat, DO NOT send any of your GOP liars to our pure, pristine country. We will send them back. We are not lying."
5
We need to focus on getting rid of Donald Trump. He is dangerous to the future of this country and the world. Collin's article doesn't help. I don't care about his bad grades or SAT scores. Neither does the Donald. He would probably welcome another distraction and an excuse to tweet about it while education, healthcare and social justice keep on drowning. Cohen's testimony doesn't help unless he brings new evidence of what he acuses Trump of. "He's a racist, a liar and a con-man" says Cohen, seemingly unaware that he is not telling us anything new and that the exact same description applies to himself, the crooked lawyer who faithfully defended and supported the Donald during his lying, racist and deceiving endeavors. Funny how our appropriate disdain for the Donald's inmoral behavior can get in the way of remembering the gross unethical history of action of individuals like George Bush and Michale Coen to the extent of almost gaining our new sympathy. I bet if Dick Cheney or El chapo start trashing Trump, some people would start admiring their "sincerity", new ability for empathy and remorse, and a predisposition to be easily used by tyrants despite their "good" consciences and best intentions.
1
Gail, Trump is banking on the $1Mil Nobel prize to help offset his upcoming Court Fees.
1
Mitch McConnell directed his GOPers to keep their head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the POTUS.
And GOPers performed exactly as directed by their Senate Leader.
Where's Mitch?
3
To be fair, it was a House committee, not the Senate.
This hearing shows there is nothing new under the sun. Trump is a known quantity and his lying ways are so apparent.
But what we are realizing, I hope, is that the republican party will do anything to protect its power. It is not hard to imagine the course of events if a Democrat behaved like trump. He/ she would have been gone by the end of the first year. The utter hypocrisy of republicans us in full bloom and it stinks.
That said, I do not want trump impeached. Pence is far more dangerous. He is a theocrat and in the back pocket of the Kochs. Pence is not the smartest guy on the hill but he understands how congress works. And the republicans would support his plutocratic and theocratic agenda. Until the gop put country before party, vote every last one of them out!
2
Unfortunately, a deal for the Nobel Prize in exchange for Trump's tax returns is unlikely to work. I don't think the Trump family will buy it.
But a new Nobel Prize category - Delusional - might be a possibility. Well documented by his tax returns. But how does the Nobel Committee get them.
I have an answer. Consult Julius Assange. Surely he can find a mole or two in the IRS.
Trump likely become president on the immigration issue, and if he is reelected it would also be on that issue.
Despite Trump's very apparent faults and corruption.
Cohen's testimony is tangential to the core concerns of many American voters that constitute a majority of the electoral college.
Yesterday was a banner day for the former Republican Party, and I would say officially marked the end of the Grand Old Party of yore, and ushered in the new Trumpster Party that is pure free-doom--free of facts, free of morality, free of patriotism, free of tolerance, and totally free of democracy.
Many of Cohen's characterizations of Trump pertained to Republican politicians, especially on that congressional committee where there are a lot of those fact-free, conscience-free Freedom Caucus Trumpsters.
The scary thing is there appears to be no shame among the citizenry in certain sections of the country in preferring the Trumpster Party to traditional conservatism or quaint old Republicanism.
Trump's voter support has held around 37% no matter what awful thing Trump says or does to Make America Worse. But lucky them, because our president doesn't need a majority vote of the citizens to win a presidential election in this country.
Twice in this century, the Democratic presidential candidate who won the popular vote lost the Electoral College vote, so the Trumpster Party really can take over the country, especially since they chased out moderate Republicans.
Repubs strategy-
Stay away from the accusations, who cares and they are most likely true. So, Kill the messenger. Create enough talking points for FOX and the base to hang onto. Jim Jorden good choice for the point man since he has experience covering up scandals as in Ohio in is recent past. Stay on message! Problem is their villain is going to jail for lying to protect the guy they are protecting. I wonder if anyone on Dripping Springs watched this?
3
Great closing line, Gail. Nobel prize for his tax returns. Let's flesh that out a bit:
Abe sends letter for Trump to committee.
Committee requests tax filings from Trump.
Trump must choose which version of returns to submit.
Committee asks for collaborating evidence.
Trump refers matter to Cohen out of habit.
Cohen cannot comply because he's in jail.....etc. ...etc....etc.
3
"I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex." is an interesting way to introduce a non-argument into the case. It seems to imply that good ol' Chip has a less-beautiful wife stashed away somewhere other than Dripping Springs? Which would not be out of keeping with the whole tenor of Trump's goings-on.
7
@Nathaniel Brown - Best comment of the day. Thank you for the much needed laugh.
2
I was hoping in vain for someone to push Cohen to explain just why it was he stayed closer to Trump than most anyone outside of The Family?
And folks, yes, we still need to extract laughs where we can.
Those who haven't should really read the threatening letter Cohen sent to Fordham on Trump's behalf, which, following the threats, carried the PS: "Mr. Trump really enjoyed his two years at Fordham ..." ( Can be seen at vox.com)
Seriously we - the public - should be able to see his tax forms. We should know what our Presidents pay in taxes. Sausage is never fun to see being made, but his brand includes some rotten, toxic substances.
A reveal of his actual grades and SAT score - the icing on the cake. Or blood on that sausage. And it would make his majesty apoplectic.
7
I would think that a graduate of the Wharton School would not be ashamed of his grades. It does make one curious about the admission standards at Wharton, but I guess it's the same old story: money and position talk. Not to disrespect George W. Bush, but would he would have gotten into Yale if is father was not who he was? These things say more about the college admissions boards than they say about these two individuals.
2
Are we sure he actually is a graduate of Wharton?
He was in their undergraduate program. That is a far cry from being in their MBA program which I think most people assume when they hear him say he went to Wharton.
4
@Senay Parkan
Undergraduate - Bachelor's degree.
1
How about the PeacePrize in exchange for Trump resigning from the presidency? That would have some logic to it. Better yet, for Trump and Pence resigning?
12
@Jean Travis Nope. he has to go down in flames in order to restore some semblance of trust and respect in our government.
2
What Cohen should have said as soon as what Rep Jordan was doing became clear:
Representative Jordan,
I see what you are getting at. Yes I lied for Trump and I did so because it made me money. I do have a family to feed and house. Who doesn't understand that? Isn't this a capitalist nation?! Do you forget the last 40+ years of GOP anything goes in the pursuit of money because the market will self correct as that is what a free market is dogma? It isn't as if these things are not common to most large corporations and business's since de-regulation.
Anyway, Yes I did lie to protect myself until the Special Counsel showed me enough evidence to convince me that he had me. Then I started to realize the true nature of what I had done and what I was in for and that is why when he offered I took the deal to tell all. I'm still going to prison for several years and no one in the country is ignorant of that or what I did to earn that punishment. A punishment that has already been passed so there is nothing for me to gain from testifying here today other than a cleared conscience.
Having established that I did lie for money; Can you move on and ask your "oversight" questions now?
3
I agree with most everything Cited and written in this column. However, I would like to make one small point. I understand that suggesting those ain't the Trump support team approached by investigators make a concerted effort to tell the truth or "consider moving to Papua New Guinea," was meant to suggest PNG as a remote destination. However, I wish to say that having spent some considerable time in PNG and still having many friends there, that while it does require some effort to travel there and many may consider it as a somewhat remote emerging country, it is populated by many beautiful, friendly, engaging and truthful people. Let's us try to find a better metaphor for a destination well suited to misguided Trump supporters than visiting them on the people of this beautiful country seeking better ties with the rest of the world. And, as for the remote nature of PNG to many I remember how warmly the people of PNG greeted then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her visit there. She seemed to have no trouble finding it and thinking enough of its people to visit and express her enthusiasm for their future.
8
"Nevertheless, Trump seems to believe this may get him a Nobel Peace Prize. He really seems to want that a lot. Maybe if the Nobel committee offered to trade it for his tax returns "… Splendid idea - and he might go for it for sure! If Trump cared about this country at all he would not run for a second term, and would admit he is indeed not qualified or cared enough to do the job well.
3
"This was presumably before Ivanka, who’s supposed to be the bright one in the family, denounced the idea of a guaranteed minimum wage because she felt all Americans 'want to work for what they get.'”
1. Ivanka probably is the "bright one in the family," but it is all relative. The whole family appears to be a bunch of know-nothings and don't want to know-nothin' materialistic nouveaus with gauche taste.
But there was also a clue about Trump's intelligence and academic achievement in Cohen's testimony yesterday. Cohen said Trump told him to warn/threaten Trump's former colleges and high school and tell them not to ever release his grades or SAT scores.
The irony is that by law, schools cannot release such information without the former student's permission. Shouldn't a lawyer know that before threatening the haggard underpaid people in the university records office?
2. "Want to work for what they get"? Wow, there is our rationale for boosting the taxes on the 1-10%, as Bernie, AOC and others have recommended.
Really, why is Trump's desk always completely clear in his office photos, and how much time does Trump spend in his "executive time"?
There is no "executive time" when you work for minimum wage or work 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet, like some of our grossly underpaid teachers do.
14
@PB
El Trumpo is a wannabe.
In that incarnation of his directives he was trying to build his reputation as a fake gangster by doing what he imagines gangsters do to create the fear that they wield to get what they want.
El Trumpo wants nothing so much as he wants to be feared so much people just do what he says for fear of what may happen to them.
That is the essence of the man himself.
2
In the face of unbelievable Republican harassment, Cohen comported himself with great dignity.
229
@pkbormes
This is so true, particularly when Republicans started calling him "criminal." (When one finger points out, three point back.) He kept his demeanor. He struck me as intelligent. And sincerely trying to make up for all the damage he did. He appears to love his children, which is more than can be said for Trump, who doesn't love. He uses. Cohen is not the new saint, but he has likely now told the truth and has accomplished something else few if any others have: he has unseated Trump as the Number One news story of the day.
46
@pkbormes - assigning this man anything close to dignity is, well, undignified. dignified people don't use their family as a shield in photo ops and testimony.
he's a punk, a bully, a criminal, and so much like trump they deserve each other. hopefully they'll be cellmates soon.
2
@pkbormes
Define dignity.
3
The central point of the Congressional hearing was not to defend the indefensible. Michael Cohen is what what he is, a corrupt modern day NY businessmen (as is Don Jr.) , which is why he’s going to jail. Overall, the Congressional public hearing missed an opportunity to “uncover/ confirm” Trump’s malfeasance, even as it stares us in the face. Michael Cohen’s public statement was chuck full of leads for the Democrats to mine, which went mainly ignored.
Instead, as has been noted elsewhere in this paper, most Democratic members made speeches and did not press Cohen for additional details on his assertions that Trump and his organization are crooks, racists, mysognists, unpatriotic, misanthropists and all around corrupt. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was one of a couple or Reps. who extracted leads for further future investigation.
Reps. Jordan, Meadows (R) were purely reprehensible in their defense of the indefensible. Wonder, whatever became of the investigation around Coach Jordan’s involvement in the wresting varsity team’s sexual abuse allegations. The NYT should really visit that angle
10
Can you imagine a covert tape of the caucus that preceded that dumb show? Everybody in? Hope there was one.
5
Classic “shoot the messenger” defense.
6
Thank God for a lady who not only knows what an apostrophe is, but also knows how to use it. In addition, she offers something very valuable in these parlous times---a lively sense of humor.
7
I watched ,,, IMO -- changed few minds.
@GT Perhaps it didn't change many minds, but it sure laid out all the dirt for those unchanged minds to consider and validated all those who have been exposing trump for years without access to a global audience.
3
Republicans have become a cult following. Trumps insistence on loyalty over truth, insistance on his alternative fact version, combined with his self importance and implicit threat of firing and disgrace, has created a cult. It takes an independent thinker to avoid falling into that trap and Trump avoids independent thinkers like the plague. It will also take a significant shock to shake them out of that blind mindset. Prison can do that. It can cause an overnight conversion to reality. It takes focus, integrity, honesty and independent thinking to escape the cult trap. It is not a pleasant thing to watch republicans in thrall. Followers are susceptible, leaders,less so. We await what follows from Cohen's revalations.
6
I love Gail Collins' stuff, but this column is ridiculous (and not intentionally).
First, no one is easier to defend than Donald Trump, because he doesn't need to be defended! I have seen nothing that has affected his (mediocre, but enough to get reelected) approval. He's not right about a lot but he's right about being forgiven for shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. (Although with NY sentiment so anti-Trump maybe he should have said shooting someone on a mythical street in a mythical small town).
Second, talking about his mediocre grades to drive him nuts is irresponsible. Let's get focused, folks! This man is a threat to the whole world and the U.S. in particular. We don't need to spend time criticizing him or bemoaning him (I refuse to do either) or hurting him. We need need to do exactly one thing: get rid of him. We need to spend our precious time and energy only on this goal.
Politics is not an amusement; it's about the most important thing that most of us ever do. Let's get with it!
47
@DM I appreciate Gail's column. I read it first to start my day in a lighter mood as I start reading and hearing from other sources just how far we have fallen with the electoral college president playing TV host in front of the whole world.
27
@DM
Do you watch SNL or “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver? Especially in the case of Oliver, humor is used to great effect not only to skewer Trump, but to highlight the threat he poses to democracy and the rule of law. Thunderous outrage takes us only so far. Substantive criticism that can make us think AND laugh can go a long way toward “getting rid of him.”
39
@DM Ms Collins is using a literary technique called "layered irony." Though I admit, the times we live in are so outrageous it is easy to miss.
28
Yes, Chip Roy may have won the contest for most ridiculous line of questioning in a crowded field of buffoons. He knew he was serving up some weak sauce too, since he prefaced the whole simpering rant with his status as a cancer survivor. Kudos to him and his family for surviving the ordeal, but the USA has its own cancer to root out, and this hearing was part of the unpleasant but necessary process.
7
Whooo was that gentleman from Louisiana who can’t find the magic boxes?
I believe Mr. Cohen told him where they are.
Oh that’s right...
4
I was impressed with Stephen Lynch, when he called out Republicans for sitting silent for 2 years and enabling Trump. And then there was 'AOC,' who showed everyone what oversight questions should be.
12
At least he has yet to drive to Canada with a retriever on top of the car.
2
One can only hope that Chip's "beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex" is smarter than he is and ignores him.
Chip is a paradigm of the 21st century Republican members of Congress.
Took a while to get Al Capone but taxes (or lack thereof) finally put him behind bars. May Don-the-Con suffer the same fate.
19
“a C student”
Gail,
I think you might be overestimating the President? I wish Trump was as mediocre as George W. Bush. No even close
7
@Maurie Beck
It isn't his college GPA that's the problem, it's the disdain for knowledge combined with incessant boasting, and the lying.
The pathetic performances of the Republicans on the committee showed the nation that they are not interested in the truth about Trump. And to hear them whine about the waste of time about the hearing was laughable.
8
Well, we now know that Trump's SAT scores have gotta be lower than his cholesterol counts, yes?
Gail? Can you make this your new weekly mention like you had regarding Mitt strapping the family dog to the ski rack of his family's vacation-bound car? Thank you.
9
very funny, Gail. congrats
4
Trotting out the occasional African-American friend, employee, or supporter to peddle as "proof" that they are not racist seems to be a recent Republican strategy. After all, Trump himself invited Ben Carson and his dear friend Omarosa to be part of his inner circle. So I offer you this.
In the days of slavery, black women nursed and cared for white children. Was allowing these women to nurture the most precious beings in their world — their own offspring — "proof" that their owners were not racist?
Of course not. They were using them.
Even the most vehement racists will make exceptions when it's convenient.
15
At last, our national nightmare appears to be imploding. The Republicans who hold tight to a toxic, corrosive excuse for a human being will act surprised when they find sores and pustules on their hands and arms. If the Evangelicals who support Trump ever open their eyes, they will find themselves in the embrace of a vile offspring of Satan. Too harsh? Not based on Michael Cohen's testimony. Even if Cohen is an incorrigible liar, he was a witness and handmaiden to a debased man who threatens our country in ways that Vladimir Putin could never have hoped. Impeachment? Isn't there some ancient rite or ritual that will send Trump back to the netherworld from which he came?
7
@neil Impeachment AND REMOVAL. Those two separate steps are needed to send him back to the netherworld from which he came.
2
Trump (ex-) employees who do not want to testify should not move to Papua New Guinea. Papuas do not like liars very much...
1
I spent today watching the 7+ hours of the congressional hearings. It was interesting to watch republicans delivering the breathtakingly original news that Michael Cohen is a liar. After Mr. Cohen admitted to lying, in service to the president and apologizing for his behavior of the 10 years, we were treated to republican outrage of this as the greatest of importance. Before the hearing started I was treated to a small shouting match to stop the hearings as irrelevant. I saw a young black woman paraded around to prove the president’s lack of racism. Republican behavior was childish, repulsive and silly to say the least.
10
Chris Cuomo hit the right question when he asked if it wasn't hypocritical for the same Republicans who don't care about Trump's lies, to then protest that Michael Cohen is a liar.
9
Trump thought he could pick up an easy million dollars by "winning" the Nobel peace prize. Missed again.
3
Why doesn't Tom Steyer offer a million dollars to anyone who can produce copies of Trump's high school & college transcripts or SAT scores?
9
People seem to have forgotten that Michael Cohen was not convicted of making hush money payments to Stormy Daniels; hush money payments are not illegal. He was convicted of making an excessive campaign contribution. The $130,000 Cohen paid Stormy exceeded the $2,700 limit for individuals.
The FEC penalty for an excessive campaign contribution is a fine calculated as a percentage of the excess amount, but everyone knows that Cohen wasn’t making a personal contribution when he made the hush money payment. Trump directed Cohen to make the payment, and Cohen billed the Trump Organization for reimbursement plus an attorney’s fee.
Trump cannot be charged with making an excessive campaign contribution because there is no limit on what amounts candidates can make to their own campaigns. Trump is not going to be charged for directing Cohen to make an excessive campaign continuation, because Cohen clearly wasn't making a controversial button; by pre-arrangement, he invoiced Trump for the money plus an attorney fee. And Trump did not use Trump campaign money to reimburse Cohen; he paid out of his corporate pockets. This is why the FEC hasn’t defined the Trump campaign for the hush money payment, even though it has know about the payment for more than a year.
1
@William Case -- you keep inventing puffery nonsense.
Trump can be charged for conspiracy with Cohen and Pecker for the National Enquirer "catch and kill" as an illegal campaign contribution.
Trump can also be charged for an UNREPORTED contribution associated with paying off Cliffords. Further this unreported contribution was done via fraud, money laundering and "financial structuring."
Had Trump wrote a check for $130,000 out of personal funds, sent it to Cliffords and reported it as a campaign contribution -- that would have been legal.
But Trump didn't do that. He conspired to have Cohen pay off Cliffords, and then Trump reimbursed Cohen with a series of checks, the first on a personal account, all the remainder from the Trump Trust signed by Little Donne.
The two illegal pay-offs are worth somewhere between 21 and 40 months in jail ... depending on whether the Cliffords payoff is treated as the 130 k$ paid to her or the nearly 400 k$ paid to Cohen (for the "level up" in the federal sentencing guidelines, each $5,000 is worth a "level") and the treatment of the fraud & structuring components of this.
Little Donnie signing all but one of the checks makes him a co-conspirator too.
2
George W, who was no hero, actually told the world that he was a "C student" and therefore mediocre people could aspire to be president. That make me think that maybe tRump wasn't even that good--who knows? We know he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
5
So, if the election was illegally won- what happens?
President Clinton?
No Gorsuch or Kavanaugh?
Anyone care to speculate?
1
@Marlene Barbera The Speaker of the House, (Nancy Pelosi), is third in line to assume the presidency if the president and vice president are not capable for whatever reason.
3
@Marlene Barbera
Oh Happy Day!
1
"We certainly know that Cohen is not … perfect."
Of more interest, we certainly know Trump is not..perfect, not good, not mediocre, not adequate, not acceptable and not decent. Let me count the ways. Oh no! Not enough time or space here (read the daily NYT, WaPo...for the past 3 years, or just pay attention).
Okay. Cohen is not perfect and on a scale of zero to ten where ten is perfect and zero is abysmal, Trump is a negative 10. So what...Republicans scream!
And that was what we learned yesterday. Republicans don't care a whit that Trump is a "racist," a “con man” and a “cheat.” That is the real story. You did not have to watch all of yesterday's hearing (though I did) to see that Republicans did not want to learn what crimes Trump may have committed, what evidence may exists, they only cared to defend Trump by attacking the messenger.
Cohen actually cautioned them not to follow in his footsteps, not to make the same mistake of allegiance to a man who will soil their reputations, destroy their integrity. But they would not listen.
Instead, Republicans put on a display of outrage that someone who has lied, has cheated, can never tell the truth and thus must be lying in everything he says, especially in his testimony...which would gain Cohen an even longer prison stay, if he were so stupid to lie again to Congress. But we also learned yesterday, Cohen is not stupid.
Finally, we learned yesterday that Republicans are Trump's replacement to Cohen. They are his new fixers.
8
At least Michael Cohen was sincerely expressing his remorse...he deserves a credit for that.
But there's another person (congressman) Matt Gaetz, who proved to be as despicable as his boss, Individual1. His mobster tactics to intimidate Cohen were on full display, never mind the forced apology after Florida Bar Association started investigating him, in my view the AG should issue the indictment and remove him from office for ever.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/431872-florida-state-bar-investigating-matt-gaetz-for-threat-to-michael-cohen
The whole affair yesterday clearly proves once again, how GOP is completely in line in covering up their slime of the president, and what a disgrace it is, especially after they heard Michael Cohen said that trump will never allow a peaceful transition of power, suggesting that he could trigger another Civil War.
Just like Elijah Cummings said...
We're better than that!
9
The decade-long personal lawyer to the man who is now the President of the United States of America testified before a United States of America Congressional committee that the man who is now the President of the United States of America is a racist, a conman and a cheat.
How on earth did we fall so far, so fast?
6
Any defense of Trump, at this point, is an incredible and cynical charade. It was performed most embarrassingly by Congressman Jim Jordan, whose frothing-at-the-mouth over the impropriety of the proceedings demonstrated how deep the ethical schism is between those who defend our corrupt president while not actually believing him, and those who demand some level of accountability. (Jordan, I have learned, is an ex-wrestling champion, so it's not at all surprising he can contort himself into weird positions most of the rest of the world would find untenable).
No, I don't believe a single Republican doubts the allegations against the president. Their feeble defense against Cohen consisted of impugning the witness' character-- a tactic that might have been credible if it didn't raise the obvious question of why the waters in Trump's fishbowl are so filthy. The list of bottom-feeders in that bowl include the likes of Cohen, Manafort, Stone, Pecker (and probably others who lie at even murkier levels).
The only apparent reason to continue to defend Trump is that they correctly perceive that one impetus for the investigations into all his wrong-doings originates from a deep partisan hatred of the man. However, it also (and primarily) originates from a genuine belief in the laws of our land as ennobled by our Constitution. This poses a real dilemma for Republicans; but they would be wise to remember that the ethical decision is usually the one that is most difficult.
7
Something is dripping, but it’s not springs. It’s the last dregs of GOP credibility and character. Deny, defuse and obstruct, just like any Mafia Family, to protect their Don. Please proceed, Boys. 2020 is coming, and you’ll be sleeping with the fishes. Politically speaking. I can hardly wait.
5
I'm afraid your irony escapes the obtuseness of anybody paid to not understand what's at issue, the 'criminality' of the Ugly American in-chief. Hence, not a single question about him, only a rabid bite to discredit Michael Cohen. The problem as to what to do may hinge on folks not believing the facts condemning Trump, given they were dripping on a daily basis, almost normalizing the lies, insults, innuendos, distractions and even the egomaniac self-aggrandizements. If anomie is installed, we are doomed.
3
Well we can see this article is already dated as one dear leader cancelled the rest of the meeting with the other dear leader. Policy disagreement or wildfire at home?
I guess we can wait until the next Summit to look for that Noble prize.
4
"Nevertheless, Trump seems to believe this may get him a Nobel Peace Prize." Or at least a resort hotel on a sandy beach in Wonsan.
2
This column was obviously written before several Congressional aides carted to the floor a few dozen burlap bags bursting with letters of support from millions of Americans who cling to their savior like a child to Kris Kringle with hope upon hope that he will restore the pleasures of white privilege that have been “under siege for five decades.”
This is the true story of this moment in history— that decades of right wing propaganda has mobilized a wave of self-pity that threatens everything and anything left of Old Glory, bringing to its knees a Grand Ole Party that has no soul.
6
Sure, can see Trumps tax returns after we see Obama's sealed school transcripts? Was it not Harvard that referred to Barrack as an international student?
@Brated - You might want to read the story about Trump's academic records.
Gail Collins is the best columnist in the universe. Nobody else comes close.
4
The headline "Trump's a tough guy to defend" ... Basketball? In B-ball "tough to defend" is high praise. The image of the orange-haired ball of suet attempting to drive, er waddle, to the hoop is pretty funny though.
At this point the obvious question is "what does it take to get rid of this bum?" Republicans really need to be asking themselves that, and it doesn't seem like they are yet. Think of him like a really really bad draft pick who got the big contract. He's stinking up the joint big time, and then he does something reputational ... and he's gotta go.
Remember Dennis Rodman, known as "the Worm?" His autobiography is titled "Bad as I Wanna Be." And the amazing thing is that Dennis loves Kim Jong Kill-your-brother too! The Donald and the Worm need to talk ... the Worm might be able to offer Donald a few pointers. After all, when you can love a guy who killed one close relative with a flame-thrower and had a half-brother poisoned with a nerve agent ... that's some weird kind of unconditional love, right? They've got that in common!
But the thing is, Trump's got no redeeming features. Dennis at his prime was one of the great rebounders of B-ball. Bobby Knight, not known as Mr. Loosey-Goosey about team discipline described Dennis as "a very disciplined basketball player."
The Republicans need to find somebody to take the Donald off their hands. That's not gonna be easy.
3
Yes, Dirty Don is a racist. He says and does terrible things. It was easy for Cohen to quote him. But as far as speaking in code (and using "dog whistles") I was upset that there was no response, neither from the Dems nor from Cohen to Chip Roy's tribute to the "real Americans" in his home district. Too bad Cohen didn't ask him to define the term. Who in that room was not a "real American?" The people of color? Jews such as Cohen? members of other ethnic groups? What, pray tell, is a "real American?" Maybe this is why the Republicans chose to try to discredit Cohen, rather than seize the opportunity to wrap themselves in the flag and see if Dirty Don really is a threat to our democracy. Perhaps if Cohen had been Italian, like Joe Valachi turning on the mob, they would have treated him better. No, wait: that might have meant charging Rudy Giuliani with obstruction of justice.
6
Since Trump is now a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize and since his immigration service tore infants and young children from their mother's arms and shipped them cross country to be caged without tracking records, perhaps I can offer other names for nomination with similar sensitivities, albeit post mortem: 1) Joseph Stalin, 2) Pol Pot, and 3) Idi Amin.
6
In return for his tax returns all he would merit is the Ignoble Prize
1
This article connects the dots to all the links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/opinion/sanders-warren-foreign-policy.html
I would like to comment on the action of Mark Meadows who vehemently declared he was not a racist. Here in western North Carolina he represents a 99% white district carved out for him by the republican house and senate. A large chunk of afro-americans were put into a republican district-the 11th taken from Meadow's Asheville district. He was a birther and he totally supports Donald Trump who I consider to be a racist. At a rally here (NC) he wanted to send Obama' back to Kenya or wherever he comes' from. But of course he Meadows has black relatives and that does not make him a racist-ha!
9
I’m SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I’ll tell ya to hear that there’s lying taking place in this administration. Also, we’re past the point of, rounding up the usual suspects. They are all headed to the hoosegow.
1
[Nobody jumped up and yelled: “A racist? How dare you call this man a racist?” To be fair, one Republican committee member did demur, and brought in a black government appointee to stand there and look diverse.]
Only problem is that the Republican committee member (Mr. Meadows) who used Ms. Patton as a racially insensitive prop to prove Trump in not a racist, is the same person who once stated that he would like to send "Obama back to Kenya or wherever" he came from.......
Ohh....how far the party of Lincoln has fallen
5
Even Cohen could not descend low enough in the gutter to reveal the true Trump Low life character
1
The North Carolina Republican who had the black female Trump employee stand up to prove that the president is not a racist is the same man who talked about sending Obama “back to Kenya” a few years ago! All the Republicans looked ridiculous attacking Cohen today!
8
Dime Store Texas is a humble Burg with a special penchant for wooden nickels. Their library has glass cases that displays phonies, frauds, and debased coins of all stripes. Their newest addition is housed in a special portico in which lies a grotto. Within that grotto is a pedestal upon which stands a wooden dollar. The obverse displays the great seal of the United States. The reverse states, “The buck stops here and the burnt Cheerios Flim Flam Man from Queens left their skid marks across the Nation”.
2
@Tabula Rasa -- Ya know, just as long as we are thinking about Texas ... the thing I cannot understand is Texans voting for Ted Cruz (aptly known as "the vaselined serpent") after he got down on his hands and knees and licked Trump's boots in an attempt to save himself from Beto.
Trump's the man who insulted Mrs. Cruz and claimed that Ted's father was involved in the plot to kill JFK.
Rear-kicked-in poltroonery of this magnitude makes Texas into a laughing stock.
3
@Lee Harrison Ted Cruz, "The Anointed One" chosen for higher purposes. Being chosen for higher purposes does mean integrity and values take a back seat.
1
Republican committee members managed to make Michael Cohen look like a man of probity and wit.
289
@crowdancer
I agree.
I didn't think much of Cohen as a person prior to his trial. But while watching this fiasco my companion said, "I find myself really rooting for this guy."
I bet a lot of people are.
43
@KJ Absolutely.
9
Time and again one Republican after another demanded to know why they should believe a word Cohen says now, since he has admitted to lying to Congress previously and will in two months begin a 3 year term in prison for having done so. They apparently had their earbuds in with the volume turned up to 10 and listening to Metallica while Mr. Cohen, in response to Chairman Cummings's question to Cohen if he understood the gravity of his future if he lied so much as once during the day's testimony.
Yes, Cohen said, and he should have reminded each of the inattentive Republicans in turn that he had said just that, knowing that the sentence he faced would be a day with his kids at Six Flags in comparison to what he faced if lied to them now.
It is to be noted, too, that not a single Republican accused him of lying to them during the entire hearing, only that he had admitted to that crime in the past.
I normally try to lace my comments to Gail's articles with satire, sarcasm, or just plain looniness, hoping maybe someone will get a grin or a chuckle from my musings. I can't do it today. This is the funniest I can give on this subject.
4
That gasping sound that you heard was Donald, Jr., and Jared, with their lives flashing before them. Reality is about to set in.
122
@PB
Maybe we should deport all this gang to Russia with Love. Russians might even splurge on Red Carpet Oscar style for loyal Putin's stooges, also let's not forget the GOP lackeys, I'm sure many of them will find the regime fit like a glove, they've been in Politburo training for too long, let's just deport them in style!
11
@PB -- They are a lot more scared of prosecution in New York than they are by the Feds. And we have every reason to suspect it is coming.
13
“I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, ‘Don’t bother watching,’” said Representative Chip Roy.
-----------------------------------------
Dripping Springs?
Isn't that the code word used for *that* Russian video?
13
@Dennis Callegari - Good one.
The republicans on the committee wanted to establish Mr Cohen as a lying criminal, which he has admitted to.
No mention that Mr Trump had the lying criminal working for him for ten years, knowing full well who he was.
8
Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of the GOP claiming the man whose job was to lie for Trump couldn’t be trusted because he lied for Trump, the most memorable exchange went like this (paraphrased):
Gym Jordan: You’re a liar who paid a company to write positive tweets about himself and you’re just doing this for a book deal.
Michael Cohen: You’re doing the exact same thing I did for ten years: lying to protect Mr. Trump. This won’t end well.
Truer words were never spoken.
7
Geez, the deplorables and bumpkins had 14 years of faux glamor on The Apprentice. It’s time to cut our losses in 2020.
4
Whenever I watch one of these hearings I'm stuck by the ineffectiveness of many of the Republican members of the House of Representatives, and I think: Who would take any of these people seriously?
At the very least, they lack all sense of self awareness, perhaps imagining that they will either be perceived as profound, thoughtful, and wise servants of their constituents, or sly, clever masters of the art of interrogation, based on their perception of lawyerly performances as seen on TV dramas.
Instead, they actually come across as ignorant buffoons: shouting, squealing, grimacing, uttering infantile chants like "Pants on Fire!" and generally making fools of themselves. The evening news "highlights" from the hearings resemble a reel of blooper out-takes from a Monty Python skit, while showcasing some of the worst acting this side of Hee Haw.
15
When a man emerges from a swamp such as Trump's corruption covered with muck, even a good shower can cleanse him. That is why Cohen will spend time in jail, but to ignore his first hand account is something we do at our own peril
6
Yesterday's performance of "outraged sycophancy" by the corruptly partisan Republicans, brought new meaning to the term theatre of the absurd. It also must have been validating for those who believe " all is irony ", when the Republicans were
In high dudgeon about Cohen's " lies", while supporting a serial liar, who according to fact checkers, has pubically lied over 8 thousand times since he became president. The most "intense sycophant award" would have to go to ranking member, and ex collegiate wrestler Jim Jordan, who at times seemed ready to vault over the panel and physically pin Mr.Cohen.
4
Oh, come on Gail! You know the only reason Donnie doesn't want his high school and college grades and SAT score public is because of his unbridled humility and love for us lesser mortals. After all, he *is* a brilliant guy, a genius (and a stable one, at that). The last thing he'd ever want is to embarrass the rest of us dullards. He'd never say it to our faces, but we don't function on the same intellectual plane as he. We're just not capable understanding and appreciating his beneficence since he knows words, the best words, that are far above our ken.
6
@Kent Moroz
Awww, he just doesn’t want to cut Obama off below the knees. Harvard Law Review, pshaw.
1
What makes Trump supporters, both in Congress and in the public at large, think that they won’t get shafted by Trump, just like Cohen got !?
5
The GOP is despicable. This is such a disgraceful time in our country, and if the damage done can even be repaired, it is going to take a long, long time. Jim Jordan looked like he needed a straitjacket yesterday. All to cover for a man who has no morals and no loyalty to anyone.
9
" 'I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, Don't bother watching.' "
Another Republican variation of "Don't believe what you see."
2
“Almost everybody who knows Donald Trump appears to be going to prison for lying. “
I stopped reading the editorial after that line. Utter nonsense.
@Bill This is not an editorial. It is an opinion column.
3
I see. President Trump doesn't hit women; he just hits on them.
5
This column was insightful and true. I am not being critical when I wonder if I could make one observation? Could Stormy Daniels be called by her last name as Cohen and Trump are? I do not mean this in a self righteous way snd I may be wrong. I have just been involved in the sex trafficking issue in my town, which is 4th in the nation for sec trafficking per capita.
I know this is way off topic and I loved your column. I do look forward to your columns. I don’t mean this as self righteous. It is just that where I live, there are so many Fscebook posts on missing and endangered women. It is a disproportionate problem in my state’s Native population.
So I are probably overly sensitive when I react to a porn star being referred to by her first name while the men are called by their last names. That is even maybe how she would like to be referred to. I just see so many women reduced to their made up first names. This is not a criticism of the column. I think I am talking in general about names .
I just read of so many women with first and last names being reduced to child like first names in the sex trade. This may be their choice. I just see so many photos of women with first and last names who have become nameless and lost.
7
In all their caterwauling, the Republicans never once shouted, "Not true! You've got him all wrong! The President is a decent, honest, and morally upright person!"
Nor did any of the Republicans on the committee seem bothered by the irony that Cohen lied to Congress, and is going to jail as a result, to protect the man that they were bending themselves into pretzels to protect. Cohen's lesson; "Don't make the mistake I made!" was lost on them.
Trump's ability to alter the thinking of otherwise rational human beings is astounding. And scary.
261
@Ralph Averill--You're right. In fact, I've never heard anyone, including his family members, describe Trump as "decent, honest and morally upright." Where are the "friends" of the president that he supposedly chats with on the phone? Where are his golfing buddies, the Mar-A-Lago crowd that flock around him when he's there? Where are the testimonials? All anybody can seem to come up with is that no criminal charges have been pinned on him. I guess that's praise enough, if you're Republican.
32
@Ralph Averill
"otherwise rational" ???
8
@Ralph Averill The mistake you're making is assuming these are otherwise rational human beings.
12
As always, thanks for providing at least a moment of humor in what is otherwise a dark and gloomy scenario.
3
More than anything else, flipping by Sammy "The Bull" Gravano ultimately nailed "The Teflon Don," John Gotti, and it's beginning to look as if Michael Cohen may do the same to the brazenly despicable Donald Trump, with an assist from Allen (think Al Capone's bookkeeper) Weisselberg. It's about time.
Waiting for the rule of law to bring down mob bosses sure does require an awful lot of patience, but it's oh, so sweet when Lady Justice finally gets the last laugh. So please proceed, Mr. Mueller. This criminal presidency has gone on far too long.
5
It's been interesting to watch the different stages of the Donald Trump defense. I guess we are in the stage of "you can't believe these people, who used to work for him, when they say bad things about him, because they are all sleazeballs".
112
@Rick
Just “surround yourself with good people”.
Republicans have always been a little confused over the job descriptions of those who work in the fields and those who work in the house...
2
Don't forget that apparently there is a member of Congress that didn't know who Michael Cohen was....until today! I almost fell out of my chair with that one. They sure do "got better things to do"....including forgetting that the FBI had the "boxes" from Mr. Cohen's office. Maybe if the GOP had done their job, instead of other things, they wouldn't have lost the House in the last election.
3
Is all this mindless chaos really happening in the USA? Let’s insure that the phoenix which arises from the din, befits the democratic republic to which we aspire. Perhaps our era will become a touchstone of how not to have self government, how not to confront real problems, and how not to represent America.
Well done, Gail. We are living with a stage-4 cancerous Tea Party Congress that was many years in the making. As important as it is to put a decent person in the White House, I believe that is more important that Democrats take control of the Senate which Mitch McConnell has made just as powerful as the President. And we must get as many of the unqualified zombie Tea Partiers out of both the House and Senate as we can.
3
I chose to watch the commentated NYT live broadcast which was enlightening in that the reporters noticed some statements I missed and provided background to others. I am glad we are finally getting these investigations off the ground, hopefully tax returns will be requested soon, and dismayed that the investigative abilities of our elected officials has deteriorated drastically in 40yrs. I watched the Watergate hearings and found the level of questioning to be clear, directed, and with purpose. Only a few, notably AOC, displayed such ability yesterday. I expected the Republican members to be obstructive but whiny, hectoring, schoolmarmish? Grown men behaving like incompetent bullies in Congress during an Oversight Committee meeting was...obscene. I also hoped the Democrats would rise above and stay on task without the need to preach, exhort, and worse, ingratiate. It's clear Republicans strategized prior to the meeting. Did the Dems? One hopes they review their performances and adjust, upwards. Are these hearings necessary? YES. Will they bring clarity, eventually. Should we expect Congress to conduct more investigations into 45's alleged frauds, lies, treasonous behavior? Definitely. We must know our president is dedicated to upholding the Constitution, at the expense of his own wealth and ego.
2
The GOP lack of oversight for the last two years has almost inured us to Trump's corruption. It's as if a collective trance has overtaken the country.
The Dems need to keep hammering away to break the spell. There will be mistakes , pratfalls and traps but there is no choice but to maintain a steady light on the virus that is the Trump presidency.
And still there is no guarantee that we can escape. Cohen wanted us about 2020. Why would he say that? What has he heard? What does he know?
4
Would the president’s tax returns earn a National Book Reward or a Man Booker for fiction?
3
Sure, Cohen is a liar, but who among us has never lied? Does being a liar mean you cannot sometimes tell the truth. Even Donald Trump sometimes tells the truth, albeit quite rarely. Let's assume Cohen is being truthful. Surely, being under oath and the threat of more jail time, he has that as an incentive. He is, at this time being honest. What's next for Trump?
1
As I listened to the House Republicans during Cohen's testimony, it was clear that the country and its constitution mean nothing to them. They have sold their souls and sold out their country.
They are traitors by definition, every one of them.
4
You can't defend the indefensible.
2
Impeach Trump? For what? We saw the Dems defend Bill Clinton to for outright perjury. Even if Mr Cohen is telling the truth, nothing he Trump has done comes close to perjury.
1
Uh, that’s because Trump hasn’t testified under oath. Give him time.
3
Democrats, (some of them anyway) are saying that payments to Story via a back-channel Cohen doesn't amount to the level of criminality that's required to impeach Trump (I bet that really riles Bill Clinton).
Well, Trump has lied about since it forever, covered it up, used surrogates, tried to hide the payments, and he's on tape and in public.
Trump ridicules Cohen as a "liar" but Trump trusted Cohen with hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money. His signature is right on the checks.
I'm sure that digging into Trumps money trails will turn up a lot skeletons amounting to more Whitewaters by orders of magnitude.
It's going to be like tying a bell on a cat but there's more than one way to skin him. There's racism, asking Putin to hack Clinton's email, campaign finance violations, and putting industry hacks in charge of the EPA, and then he still won't shut up. I bet he sticks his foot in his mouth in Viet Nam too.
It'll be JET LAG's fault and Trump will declare a national emergency by outlawing jet lag.
1
I was amusing myself with a fantasy in which some college administrator released Trump’s real school grades and smote the stable genius where he lives—in his ego. And then I realized it would be pointless: Trump would promptly claim that a Dem geek had hacked the school server and changed every A+ to a C in yet another example of fake news. Arrgh!
2
Trump should be outraged by Republican behavior at the Cohen hearing. Not one of his presumed sycophants rose to his defense. Not one of them shouted his praise, or catalogued his list of presidential achievements, notwithstanding the fact that doing so wouldn't have taken very long. So few achievements, so much time. What's a Congressperson to do?
Instead, they allowed their ranking member, Jim Jordan, himself credibly accused of looking the other way at Ohio State's sexual abuse scandal, to crucify himself by posing as a paragon of moral perfection. Whattaguy.
The Republican members of the House Oversight Committee more than amply demonstrated their abject disregard for their stated and serious roles, while complaining about the spectacle of it all. Unfortunately, it is they who made it a spectacle, watching in feigned outraged while Wile E. Coyote Trump was run off a cliff by a convicted, albeit in this case, credible liar.
With friends like that, as the saying goes.... And now, a word from our sponsor, Kim Jong Un.
@Quoth The Raven The repubs in congress got used to not participating in governing when we twice elected President Obama. Now that they have their just desserts, they seem unable to help the country.
For each of his claims that a Trump was “a racist, a conman, and a cheat” Mr. Cohen gave substantive examples to support his assertions. For each of the biased, unhinged, and defamatory accusations that Republicans hurled, Mr. Cohen remained unruffled. He came across as earnest, humbled, and repentant. That puts his miles above the craven, Trump-led members of Congress. Their juvenile signs and stamping of their feet, and shouting over the Chair are taken directly from their dear leader’s playbook. Hope Trump is watching and fuming.
2
Even liars can tell the truth. Simply branding Cohen as a liar ad nauseum does not mean his evidence under oath should be dismissed as fiction. If he falsely testified he can face perjury charges and further jail time. Certainly an incentive to be truthful. Look at the totality of the evidence and documentary corroboration. Who is more credible? Sara Sanders or Cohen? The Republican assault team or Cohen? The chronic liar Trump or Cohen? The answer is easy. Michael Cohen.
2
Give him a Nobel prize in exchange for his resignation — that would be most deserved and truly deliver greater peace.
2
Donald Trump is a deeply flawed, disturbed, and sociopathic human being. This explains all of his behaviors we have been subjected to witness over the years. The litany of his behaviors go on and on. As chairman Cummings stated at the end of the hearing- we need to get back to normal.
5
May be one of the new projects for the Trump organization is to build a prison version of Trump Tower to house current and future friends of Trump who end up being incarcerated. They would of course, have to pay a 7 figure sum to Uncle Sam to enjoy this privilege.
1
The GOP did nothing to address the issues Mr. Cohen brought up. Not one thing. As you said, Ms. Collins, they instead spent the whole time saying the same thing over and over and complaining about wasted time, while being the ones that wasted time with vigor.
Not one Republican is upset that Trump has lied, cheated, stolen, bullied, and then lied a lot more. Not one dares to address the naked emperor without first kissing his toes and offering up slavish praises. This is a horrible thing to see in what was recently a proud democratic country.
We've always heard that democracy is fragile. Now we are seeing it in real time. It is hard to watch the GOP lust for power and money so desparately that they are willing to destroy our country.
2
I watched the morning portion and what struck me was not the details of Trump's venality and criminality. It was the overall impact of getting a real sense of the Trump Organization's Godfather culture and how it has carried over into the White House. Clearly the Godfather and the Sopranos are actual role models for Trump, a man utterly ignorant of anything but marble and gilded brass. "Russia? No Russia? Get it?" This said to a man working to build Trump Russki. Previous presidents looked to the best of our past. While Trump gives some credit to Lincoln in a perfunctory way, his real role model is Andrew Jackson, the racist slaveholder whose greatest accomplishment was the genocide of the Cherokees.
Like small time mobsters, the Republicans did nothing but work to impugn the witness and scurried away from actually confronting what the Mob Boss in Chief did and continues to do. Like small time prosecutors looking for their main chance to be onstage and move up in the world, the Dems mostly blew their chance to excavate the rot. Just imagine what they could have accomplished if a few more representatives had shown the gumption of Hill and Octavio Cortez and asked real questions.
Still, what made it most memorable to me was Cohen's comment about covering up for a crook for 10 years and pointing out that was what the Republicans are doing. He showed shame and remorse. What will it take for the Republicans to finally do the same. I'm not holding my breath.
2
My takeaway from the Republican rants:
"We will not dispute directly that Trump is a lying, adulterous, cheating (list too long to go on) president, but we are welded to him. And you, Mr. Former Fixer facing prison time, have gone to the bright side. Therefore we will huff and puff and huff some more until 2020. Or until Mueller's report wipes us off the windshield."
2
If I had a syllabus I would recommend reading, "1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know: Like Buying Your Books Before Exams Start" by Harry H. Jr. Harrison to every student continuing on to a four year college/university. There are lots of nuggets in that book. I would add the following links:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/a-church-that-was
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/opinion/trump-investigation-robert-khuzami.htmlhttps://www.syntheticgenomics.com/teams-at-venter-institute-and-synthetic-genomics-inc-successfully-engineer-16s-rrna-using-one-step-process-combining-crisprcas9-systems-and-yeast-recombination-machinery/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splice_(film) ([D]REN. Look up the Chinese character REN.)
The Republican party was invaded by Slave State Conservatives in the aftermath of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts becoming law in the mid 1960s, and the phenomenon of Democrat Derangement Syndrome was born ( See Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and Obama Derangement Syndrome).
Slave State Conservatives pledged their support for any Republican, and the Republican agenda became the Culture War of the Neo-Confederates.
So - that's where the Republicans stand now, firmly in support of the Lost Cause, supporting that Old Time Religion.
2
It's obvious from the tone of Ms. Collins's column that she's disappointed in Mr. Cohen's performance.
After all, he did testify that he was not aware of any evidence of collusion with Russia. And I expect that, after Mueller issues his report, Ms. Collins will suddenly have a new-found disrespect for Mueller.
And other than calling Trump names, and appearing quite the drama-person, Cohen's last pre-prison gasp didn't have anything of substance to say. So i guess we'll have to rely on impeachment to put a political end to the orange man. But, again, i suspect that Ms. Collins's column on how the impeachment gambit goes will also be a bit of a disappointment.
The republicans sold out our country long ago.
6
As for those school grades and SAT scores, those trumpy acorns have fallen not far from the tree. The president seemed much keener on demanding President Obama's transcripts than on releasing his own. Why could that be?
5
The aspect of this that is always lost on Democrats/leftists, is that this is already baked into what people think of Trump. None of it is inconsistent with what people knew about him in 2016. So what should Democrats try to understand but seem unable to? HRC was so distasteful to Trump voters that they voted her down anyway. The Democrats are now even farther left of her. If they field a candidate that is at least earnest without her history of lies, hypocrisy, destruction of evidence, and arrogant moralizing, that person might get credit, but I don't think it translates to votes. Dems need to realize that to about half of voters, their ideas, arrogance, and elitist self-righteousness are more repulsive than Trump, and that is saying something. Just the thoughts of someone you can smell at Walmart.
2
This is now about more than corrupt and criminal Trump that any thinking person always knew about. This becomes more and more about the corrupt American people and their corrupt and unashamed Republican representatives in Washington. It will be difficult if not impossible to dial this one back.
1
In fact, it's not news that the President is a lying racist con man. That's been apparent for years. The only news is that his ex-lawyer said that about him. Trump's voter base mostly knew those things, too, when they voted for him in 2016. They didn't vote for a person with good qualities -- they voted for someone to upend the cultural changes they fear (while not being willing to recognize that the fear is really driven by an unfair economic system). Most elected Republicans and party officials knew all of that, too, but after decades of foisting an economic shell game on American voters while hiding it with lies that create wedge issues, they've become inured to lying, racism, and cons -- and now they're stuck with Trump and the current Republican voter base.
Indeed, we're all stuck in a heck of a pickle in this country, Gail.
2
When Evangelicals and Republicans admit Trumps past misdeeds are to put him on the path to redemption. Why when Cohen sees the light and wants to tell the truth he gets slammed.
If you need proof of hypocrisy, look here.
3
All the Republicans could do is scream “liar” because you can’t defend the indefensible. You can’t defend the character of someone who has none. Probably never occurred to them to even try.
3
At the end of the Republican attacks on Michael Cohen, the most insistent question is not "do we believe him?' but rather "can we trust the man who hired him, used his services, seemingly mentored him?". Trump seems to have made Cohen into the man the Republican members so consistently disparaged; Cohen the apprentice, Trump the master., padawan, dark lord.
2
"If you are a Donald Trump intimate and the federal authorities come calling, be careful to tell the truth. Or move to Papua New Guinea."
Let's be fair to the people of Papua New Guinea, Gail, and don't give any ideas to friends of Trump.
2
What a “Trumpster” fire this has become. I’m looking for marshmallows....
1
I have no doubt that lots of Republican congressmen told their wives not to bother to watch the hearings, they don't want them to know what a colossal crook they're helping to prop up.
4
The Trump administration is a ponzi scheme. The scheme needs ever more clueless capitalists to buy in. Unfortunately for Trump, he has run out of new sheep to fleece.
Mr. Mueller, the report please.
4
Representative Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the committee, was a wrestling coach before he was a politician. I hope he was better at the former than he is with the latter. No defensive moves, a lack of a clear plan of attack and his general lack of sportsmanship give me little hope he would be fit for either position. His shirtsleeve presentation I'm sure was supposed to give him the air of a hard charging, hard working fighter but it just showed him to be an ex-wrestling coach who doesn't know the difference between the gravity and professionalism of a congressional hearing and a sweaty mat.
4
"If you are a Donald Trump intimate and the federal authorities come calling, be careful to tell the truth. Or move to Papua New Guinea."
I am, a little incongruously, reminded of the lyrics from Sixteen Tons:
"If you see me coming, better step aside
A lotta men didn't; a lotta men died"
2
Time again to thank Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for throwing our country into chaos.
Thanks again to the non-voters, third party dreamers/nihilists, and fake "independents"
who couldn't stomach Hillary, but failed to see the lurid consequences of Trump, all of which were obvious and ugly from day one.
You made this!
6
From the Republican viewpoint, it reminded me of the Benghazi probe against Hillary Clinton. A total waste of time and money. You would have thought that the Republicans would have learned from that facade that it doesn’t work. Nope! They didn’t!
It was like blaming the Weather Person for a very bad storm instead of asking how we can prepare for it.
Not one Republican even mentioned Trump in their questions.
Remember that wonderful movie where actor Jack Nicholson said “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH?”
Now we know why our founders only gave Representatives a 2 year term.
2
Republicans seem so proud that their president isn't a criminal. I read that over and over--nothing criminal can be pinned on Trump, they brag. Never mind that he has been shown to be a despicable human being whose behavior is sordid and shabby and contemptible. While the rest of America is ashamed, Republicans are content that no criminal charges have been brought. What a low bar they have.
3
The reason Republicans didn’t want ‘merica watching the hearings was simple - they knew no matter how they tried “never mind the guy handling out Trump’s smoking guns behind the curtain - look for the Demcrat Wizards of Impeachment” they had a loser of a show:
The god-squad of the Trump base loves a story of “Seeking Redemption and I fear for my family while I’ll be away” - even when “away” is prison.
They knew if anyone had the goods on Trump, it was the guy on the stand.
Every five minutes, someone, even GOP’s “Horrid Hispanic Typical Demcrat Commie Woman” Ocasio-Cortez was on point with an extraordinary selection of questions, proving Trump the crook and proving herself capable.
So what mud could they sling at Mike Cohen? The guy looked great in sack cloth and ashes - especially after they threatened his shredded rep if he dared say Da Boss wasn’t pure as a melting glacier.
On TV, they demanded he not write a tell-all book, how dare a crook make money talking about his former boss?
They spent lots of time saying most of the crimes Cohen pleaded guilty to helped Cohen not Trump and couldn’t even keep their smears straight - accusing him of buying homes he hadn’t or not reporting working for foreign companies on a form requiring him to report working for foreign governments, and having boxes of Secret Files - ones the FBI had returned.
And Cohen, not known for humility - the felon - came off looking like a martyr facing the GOP that couldn’t shoot straight.
3
Actually, if the Nobel committee were to offer him the peace prize in exchange for his resignation that would in my opinion be a service to the world. Tom Lehrer, who supposedly once gave up political satire on the grounds that reality made satire redundant after Henry Kissinger got one, would be face palming.
1
Thanks, Gail Collins. After yesterday's hearing I needed the laugh because outside of the fact that nothing really new was revealed -- except maybe the threats Mr. Trump made about not letting his grades be known (which is also no real surprise because he's such a "very stable genius") -- it was one of the last things Mr. Cohen said about Donald Trump that continues to linger, namely: " I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition."
Not only is that the biggest fear I have, given this president's need to be the most winningest ever, but by all appearances it also appears to be the most likely scenario.
Maybe he's picked up a few pointers from Kim Jong-un after all.
7
My favorite part of the hearings was when the distinguished representative from West Virginia and others lamented that they were wasting their time when the could have been working hard on improving our infrastructure or finding a remedy for separating children from their parents. Two years of sitting on their hands was apparently not enough lead time to get that ball rolling.
16
I, for one, thank Cohen for his testimony and believe him. He has done the country a favor and I think for the right reasons. It may be a great relief to be free of the toxic environment that he worked in for so long where everything was about protecting his employer. We are all susceptible to Stockholm syndrome whereby we adopt the values of our oppressors.
Yes, he willingly worked for Trump. Yes, he was bedazzled - as are so many of Trump's supporters - by the wealth and fame (or notoriety, if you prefer) of his boss. It was a mentor/student relationship. Yesterday, the tables were turned and a chastened student lectured his teacher on right and wrong.
As Cohen remarked, the committee Republicans asked no questions of him - with the exception of one member - concerning Trump. They were afraid to hear the answers had they done so.
Cohen claimed the moral higher ground. Trump's continuing enablers in the Republican party took the sewer route to which they have become accustomed.
We can only hope that the general public can tell the difference.
10
The hardest thing for me to accept is that no one remembers the Iron Curtain. I remember the Iron Curtain. I experienced the Iron Curtain.
I know a show trial when I see one.
50
@Haim
I remember the Iron Curtain. Please explain how yesterday's hearing was like a show trial. Please.
67
@Haim Except that it wasn't a trial... Cohen has already had one of those and is going to jail . It was a congressional inquiry , remember all the ones the GOP had into Benghazi ? If you truly remember the iron curtain and the cold war , you would remember that Mr Putin was the grande fromage in East Berlin , and that one never leaves the KGB , you may have forgotten how they recruit ' assets ' ... you may also remember the Manchurian Candidate , and while you dig around in your box of 50s and 60s memories , you may recall a time when the US President didn't echo the Russians line ...
92
@Haim "I know a show trial when I see one."
No doubt. But you didn't see one yesterday. It wasn't show, and it wasn't a trial.
74
I would support Trump for a Nobel in Literature. We learned that Bob Dylan's lyrics qualify. Why not Trump's tweets? They move fiction to a new plateau.
133
@Harold: I am sure that Trump feels he would be a valid recipient for ALL of the Nobels this year.
26
@Harold
He can have a nomination when the Nobel committee forms two new categories: propaganda and mendacity.
26
@Harold
Mic drop right there. Nicely done!
1
None other than Chris Christie made the same point on CNN yesterday during a break in the hearing: “Why are no Republicans standing up and defending the president on the substance? It's either a failure of those Republicans on the Hill or a failure of the White House to have a unified strategy with them.”
Which begs the question: what would a "unified strategy" look like when trying to defend Trump? Their only option is outright lying and launching scathing attacks on the accuser. That's gotten old by now.
11
I was amazed by the simple mendacity of Republican interlocutors. They kept saying that since Michael Cohen lied before, his new evidence and testimony setting the record straight should be treated as lies now.
If they really felt that way, they should be pressing for contempt of Congress charges and investigating his statements from both appearances, and push for more prison time for the embattled Cohen. Instead, all they did was grandstand, deflect, project, pontificate and gaslight.
Back in 1998, when Republicans were pushing to impeach Bill Clinton, they said that it was a matter of principle and character. They said so often, claiming that they were people of strong moral fiber and character.
Some of those same Republicans are still in Congress. The silence regarding the principles and character of their Capo in Chief is deafening.
25
I think we know who slept through the sermons in church concerning the golden rule. It's also clear which side of the aisle has let power or the whiff of it corrupt them to the point that criminal activity and constitutional violations are acceptable behavior for the persons occupying the executive branch of government. For a party that claimed to despise dictators, communism, welfare, etc., they sure do tolerate a ton of it when it comes those who flatter them.
18
I felt a little sorry for the Republicans. They were blindsided by Cohen actually bringing in evidence. Surely, what Cohen said was not new. Everyone knows that Trump is a racist con man who cheats on his taxes, financial statements, and his wives. But to have to confront proof...that’s just not fair.
I suspect that the Republicans had a prep session, maybe by someone who knew a little bit about the law. But like their President, they fell asleep 10 minutes into the presentation, after the lawyer said “Attack his credibility.”
They missed the rest of the presentation, especially the part where the lawyer said “Conspirators ( aka “colluders’’) don’t have signed agreements outlining the steps each conspirator is to take”. Did anyone ask George Clooney in Ocean 11 to sign on the dotted line?
7
Can someone explain the psychology behind why republicans continue to support Trump given all that is known about the horrible person he is. Seriously, I don’t get it.
25
@Wendy Spend a couple of days watching the opinion shows on Fox and listening to am radio. That will help you understand Republican voters. Then look up how much money people in congress have to raise for campaigns. That will help you understand Congress.
3
that is the crux of the problem..... they, the republicans, had no one to defend.... or that they were willing to defend. they can see that the ship of state is bow up and sinking..... like the titanic.
11
Cohen has now fulfilled his promise "to take a bullet" for Trump. He's the one going to prison while Trump remains in office and Republicans denigrate Cohen and forcefully ignore any interest in whatever he might know. I hope that Cohen's family remains safe. I fully understand why he fears for them.
16
Apparently the best that can be said about the man who lost the popular vote is that he doesn’t beat his wife.
27
Trump is a terrible person, in so many ways. But is there anything in the Cohen hearings that justifies overturning the results of the 2016 election?
If Trump is impeached without concrete evidence of serious crimes (and paying hush money doesn't count - just ask John Edwards) a significant portion of the electorate will see this as proof that vested interests, and not the people, really control the government and will force out any outsider.
@J. Waddell Impeaching someone is not overturning the results of an election. It is indicting someone for violating the oath of his office.
14
@J. Waddell -- the Edwards precedent is no protection for Trump; indeed it directly demands his prosecution and conviction.
Edwards was prosecuted for the FECA felony of an unreported pay-off to keep a mistress quiet, in a campaign.
He got off because not only did he not make the pay-off, there was no evidence he even knew about it. The pay-off was made by Rachel "Bunny" Mellon -- a major supporter of his.
In this case Trump directly conspired with Pecker and Cohen for the McDougal payoff, and as you saw and heard yesterday, paid for the Clifford's payoff.
Cohen and Pecker directly contradict the claim that it was done to "protect Melania's feelings;" the negotiations (and particularly Pecker's interest) was the Presidential campaign.
As to "...overturning the results of the 2016 election;" Pence was elected too; the primary function of the VP is to assume the role of the presidency if need be. Removing Trump doesn't "overturn" anything unless Pence is removed too.
That certainly does seem unlikely at this time, but were it to happen Nancy Pelosi would become President.
2
@J. Waddell trump was not elected, he was appointed by the outdated electoral college, which gives extra weight to votes from three states.
The majority of individual voters chose Hillary. Hillary had at least 3 million more votes than trump.
It is possilbe to impeach a president without removing him. Impeachment only is like a scolding or warning. Or, he can be impeached and removed...which the majority of voters would prefer.
2
Imagine if this were President Obama, whose onetime lawyer were revealing years of illegal and otherwise sleazy behavior! Impeachment proceedings would be under way and the outrage would be through the roof.
18
If you see smoke in your house, you investigate, then take action. This is what Democrats are rightly doing. If you ignore the smoke, it can be fatal. This is Republicans are doing.
16
“Ivanka...denounced the idea of an average minimum because she felt that “all Americans want to work for what they get.” Yes, just like she and her brothers did when they were shaking down the staff at the family’s summer house to buy their lemonade.
Does the United States have an extradiction treaty with Papua New Guinea?
12
The judges important here are the billionaire backers of Trump, not their supine lackeys in the interview room, and not the 85% of Republican voters bamboozled by “alternative facts” from the billionaire brainwashing machinery: Trump, Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox & Friends, paranoid posts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, blather from McConnell & company.
If the billionaire backers begin to feel the whole Trump operation is becoming a liability, a laughing stock, a daytime version of SNL, they’ll pull the plug. Trump will be replaced. No trial, no impeachment, a quiet word and a flash of Trump’s likely future if he doesn’t follow orders. Over, kaput, but of course, the bonkers billionaires will still be running things, Just a new circus barker.
9
One thing that struck me about the hearings was how many of the Republican's most rabid interrogators were not wearing jackets, just shirtsleeves, and maybe a vest bursting at the seams. Since these lemmings are incapable of independent thought, it must have been a coordinated effort to disrespect Cohen - or the fact they are all too fat to fit into their Sears bought suits. Jim Jordan, in particular, as the minority leader on the committee, was a complete disgrace. He looked like he just finished hosing down his car in the garage, a task which is already above his pay level.
17
Now I really, really want to see his SAT scores. Can we add them to the wish list right after his 1040s?
16
I have always believed that it is much better to have a president who is smarter than me. Of course this became very apparent when comparing Bill Clinton and George W. Bush...and now the Barack Obama vs. Donald Trump comparison widens the gap to Grand Canyon size.
16
The Republicans should have mounted a better rebuttal of the accusations Cohen leveled against their Supreme Leader . For example , people say Trump is a narcissist . Yet the fact that Trump directed Cohen to threaten the colleges and high schools he attended to keep his grades and SAT scores secret shows he is a very humble man .
3
Jim Jordan was lecturing Cohen on complicity in crime? I find that ironic, given Jordan's own history of looking the other way while a wrestling coach.
17
A $35,000 check as the first of 11 installments. Since 35,000 x 11 = does not equal 130,000, has anyone bothered to ask how much the next ten installment were, and how anyone can say that 11 payments of different amounts are for one reimbursement of a payment to Stephanie Clifford, sorry...individual #2, and not other services?
2
Cohen explained in his testimony that he was paid enough to net $130,000 after taxes. Grasping at straws much?
Pay attention please - we all need to pay attention.
1
@A Boston -- do the math:
11 * 35k = 385 k$
385 - 130 / 385 = 0.66
Cohen is not in any 66% aggregate tax rate, he's not even in 66% marginal ... state and federal combined.
Don't forget that Cohen took out a loan against his house -- origination fees and interest.
And surely there's a fixer's fee for services rendered in here, as well there would be. Why would anybody do this for free?
Pay attention please - we all need to pay attention.
@Lee Harrison i don't see how you can prove even circumstantially that these payments in different amounts were for that payment. Its below flimsy.
The hypocrisy of Republicans knows no bounds. They accuse Michael Cohen of lying while they defend a President who has lied demonstrably in matters small and large. The President himself says Cohen is truthful when Cohen says he has "no knowledge of collusion" even though everything else he says is a lie. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows speak loudly as if their words carry more weight that way, even though they did nothing to attack the substance of what Cohen said yesterday and made no effort to get at the truth. Oh, sorry, Meadows brought in a black woman as a prop to show the President isn't a racist - and cried crocodile tears when Congressman Tlaib suggested the act of doing so was, in itself, racist - then a video surfaces of Meadows in 2012 speech saying "We're going to send Obama back to Kenya." I'm sure there are, to coin a phrase, "good people on both sides," but Republicans and this President have lowered the bar to new depths when it comes to public discourse and honest debate. When it comes to hypocrisy, however, they have raised the bar to dizzying heights.
30
Gail never mentioned that our Stradivarius in the white house got played by Kim To the tune of believing that Kim knew nothing about the torture of Otto Warmbier.
"He tells me that he didn’t know about it. I will take him at his word,”
This is the same Stradivarius that believes every lie told to him by dictators Putin and Bin Salman.
I think the president needs to be tuned.
24
@scott k.
In fairness, GC's column was published before the Hanoi talks collapsed.
2
Please do not insult Stradivari in this way ever again.
3
Cohen said he threatened people 500! times, at the behest of trump. Its amazing he can find workers, or voters. I can only hope that Americans will reject him, even if (when?) Democrats try to shoot themselves in the foot again.
7
@Rich
Amazing, isn't it? Doing the math, that means just about every week for 10 years, Cohen threatened someone for Trump!
10 years = 520 weeks.
Cong Spiers: "500 times?"
Cohen: "Probably"
Every week for 10 years Cohen threatened someone at Trump's behest. That's a lot of enemies!
2
Trump will only get a Nobel Peace Prize if he disappears with his friend Kim together on a nuclear missile as part of his new Star Force or follows his fixer for a long rest in jail. Now that would be divine except there could be Mike Pence to assume his position.
So maybe he will never get that prize.
4
President Trump can prove Cohen wrong.
He can release his taxes, his college transcripts, and his bone spur medical records.
22
Best one-liner on this dark day: "one Republican committee member did demur, and brought in a black government appointee to stand there and look diverse."
(Wake up Ben Carson, he's not alone, after all.)
9
Michael Cohen, a former lying con man's lying conman who got caught, put the Republicans on notice that they're headed down the same road he went down for Donald Trump. And history is recording their names and their place in era, that they empowered and defended a man morally and intellectually unfit to be president of the United States of America.
Cohen's service to Trump pales in comparison.
9
One pretty cool thing is that Stormy Daniels actually did start the snowball rolling....downhill. It’s getting bigger with every snowflake.
9
"Unless Cohen could have demonstrated that his then-boss wrote 'hush money' on the check memo."
Alas, even then I think many would simply shrug and say, "Well, yeah, at least he paid Michael back."
6
The Ivanka hypocrisy - like her father’s, no womder she is the apple of his eye - is that she implies people have to work for what they get.
As if she, like Donald before her, didn’t get her easy start in life without a father’s name and wealth.
And this has continued, handed jobs at the White House for which she has no qualifications other than first daughter.
10
In today’s public congressional hearing, Mr. Michael Cohen described “Trump world” as a realm in which loyalty to Mr. Trump is a Faustian compact. Mr. Cohen testified under oath: For the “intoxicating whiff of power,” he and others sacrificed their integrity—risked their souls—in service to a “racist, conman and cheat”.
Is there anyone among the hearing’s GOP-Trumpublican interrogators—interrogators who are so obviously Trump’s blind defenders—who has not made a similar Faustian bargain and who is not similarly intoxicated? In “Trump world” intoxicated defenders and enablers are par for the course. Or should that be curse?
Mr. Cohen certainly has credibility issues, but he publicly testified under oath. President Trump also has enormous credibility issues and has often exhibited suspect behavior. Will President Trump’s sworn responses to Special Counsel Mueller’s written interrogatives ever be made public? Can you imagine President Trump ever volunteering to publicly testify under oath? What’s to hide if truth is on your side?
4
The Repubs on the committee were awful. They did not
utter one word in defense of Trump. They attacked
Cohen for mattes he agreed to.
The croco tears over his family was truly nauseating.
Cohen ate them for lunch. They kept trying to give
Jordan the last crack at him and as a laywer he is a great
wrestling coach.
4
Donald Trump wouldn't have a penny if his father had not ripped of the U.S. taxpayers to build shoddy post WWII housing and then ripped off the U.S. taxpayers again by cheating on his taxes. But at least his dad was intelligent. He was a crook, but a smart one.
Donald got half the old man's two qualities, I suppose.
It's both infuriating and satisfying to watch Republicans defend the indefensible. On one hand, it's appalling they have more devotion to a universally acknowledged con man and fraudster and possible traitor and the people of the United States or its Constitution. On the other, when it all inevitably collapses, they will be pulled fully under all the rot and treason.
Good riddance.
11
The best part of the hearing was when Cohen told the Trump enablers they would suffer as he has for their role in supporting Trump.
12
No need to threaten schools not to release Trump's records. I doubt these schools are straining to prove they "educated" him. He is not exactly an endorsement for their high tuition.
13
I happened to watch a snippet of Chip Roy’s performance on a lobby TV yesterday. The sound was off, but the man was clearly outraged, in a Lindsey-Graham-Kavanaugh-hearing kind of way. I thin-sliced from his general demeanor and “look” that he was a Republican. My guess was that he was outraged by the very idea that the committee would deign to question the greatness of Donald Trump. I guessed further that he was playing in exaggerated dungeon to his equally-outraged constituents, wherever in red America they might be. My final guess was that he didn’t actually believe a word he was saying.
5
@Boring Tool
I believe Rep. Chip Roy is Sen. Cruz’s former Chief of Staff. A chip of the old blockhead, so to speak.
That might explain his demeanor.
3
One of the best things that the Norwegian Nobel Committee could do to burnish their image is to award the Peace Price to Trump.
Then, all the right wing criticism of the price's lack of substance would vanish into thin air.
@UH new meaning for the admonition to"follow the money." What is the Price of Peace?
In my 70's, I am old enough to understand that there were at least ten things revealed in that one day of hearings that would have destroyed an American Presidency, back when decency and family and patriotism were not only taught in schools but were ideals actually held by actual American leaders.
Today, power and greed and Al Capone-like behavior seem to be the norm for the Republican Party.
Ike would be throwing up in disgust.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
25
Trump reminds me of the figure 8 track demolition derbies I attended in my youth. The driver who had devoted the most reinforcement to protect his engine from being destroyed and who was also the most cavalier about destroying his competitors cars with brazen "wrecklessness" usually won. This, I think, is how Trump thrills and enthralls his base. It is the playbook for every despot who ever lived.
7
Cohen's most damaging testimony came after a Republican Congressman asked, why should we believe you, you are the convicted king of liars. The next Democratic Congressman gave Cohen an open field to respond.
Essentially, Cohen said, don't believe me, look at me. At 39 years of age I had achieved enormous financial success, whether legally or illegally. I then joined the Trump wagon. I,like everyone else in Trump's organization, i knew that my first order of business was to defend Trump, right or wrong.
Take head, look at where that brought me: my family is ruined, my business destroyed, my reputation hopelessly tarnished and I am facing a 3 year prison term.
To those, whether Congressman, Senators or Citizens who continue to follow my lead and still get up every day to defend Trump, right or wrong, I ask that you consider where that brought me.
I plead with you, don't defend Trump, right or wrong, listen to your conscience.
11
Mr. Cohen apologized for lying to Congress about the duration of time during the 2016 campaign that the Trump Organization was in discussions about a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
That lie helped only Cohen's boss Donald Trump and certainly didn't help Cohen who is going to jail because of it. And yet the shameful Republicans on the committee never asked a single question related to that fact, or even mentioned Trump's name. And neither has the GOP propaganda outlet Fox News.
9
What would Republicans be saying if it were Hillary Clinton?
4
@Independent The Republicans went after Bill Clinton based on a lie that dealt with a sexual encounter. Yet they give Trump a pass regardless of the many lies and questionable activities concerning his profiting from his office.
3
@Dan
I agree.
And the Whitewater investigation was about Bill Clinton's personal finances before he was president.
It went on for over 4-1/2 years at a cost of $100 Million in today's dollars.
And all they got was Clinton lied under oath about sex.
2
Ivanka Trump believes that Americans “want to work for what they get.”
Donald Trump was making $200,000 a year at an age when he could barely ride a tricycle or hold a fork, and was a millionaire at eight -all thanks to Fred Trump’s fraudulent tax avoidance schemes. Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric (and Jared) have been given similar opportunities throughout their gilded lives, but still have the chutzpah to think it’s their right to advise/scold the rest of us about the ethics and rewards of hard work.
Unlike the sleazy but penitent Michael Cohen, I do not know whether the president or any of his “entitled” offspring will ever see the inside of a courtroom let alone a federal prison, but can we at least hope/pray that when the Trump presidency is finally brought to an end they will keep their “holier than thou” pronouncements to themselves-Pleeeze!
10
Step back. You need not go very far.
View this whole spectacle as objectively as you can. Can anyone not see that it is total insanity that our nation has degerated to this?
Didn't Trump say that if Hillary were elected, she'd spend every day in court?
3
It's ironic that the Republicans whined about this not being an actual issue that affects America. They don't think that a racist, misogynist president is an issue. They don't think a lying president is an issue. They don't think an adulterous president is an issue. They don't think a cheating president is an issue. They don't think a president who praises dictators is an issue. They don't think a president who owes everything to Putin is an issue.
What does this tell us about the Republican Congressmen?
1264
@Linda
But, remember: they DO think it is an issue when a President wears a tan suit.
108
@Linda: How about, "They would sell their souls for tax cuts for their sponsors, and sell the United States to Russia for a Supreme Court full of reactionaries."
105
@Linda Most important - they don't think a criminal president is an issue. Nor do they think a dictator president is an issue. It boggles my mind that Oklahoma congressmen who call themselves conservatives voted in favor of Trump's declaration of a national emergency that abrogates Article I of the Constitution. Scalia is probably rolling in his grave.
66
They'll have plenty of free time as, one by one, they get voted out as their indefensible silence on Trump's complicity in Cohen's criminality becomes too much for voters to swallow. I suspect even die-hard Tea Party loyalists will become turncoats as they witness our constitution being torn to shreds by the Royalist Republicans.
85
@R1NA
It hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they are extremely slow learners.
9
Threatening legal action to make sure that Trump's high school, college, and college board grades never got out; saying that of course there was no bone spur evidence but that it would have been stupid to go to Vietnam; and having Cohen find a straw man buyer for a Trump portrait so it wouldn't be the lowest priced object at an auction--these are all the actions of someone who has a disreputable past that he needs to hide and an ego he can't control.
President Obama was a top student at Harvard Law and Hillary Clinton holds a JD from Yale. Senator McCain was a hero who fought and suffered greatly for his country in Vietnam. The portraits of the former president and First Lady at the Smithsonian were enormous visitor draws.
There is no shame in being a businessman but Trump received the bulk of his money from his father--the equivalent of $400 million, although he has lied about being a self-made success.
Character is destiny. The United States has had numerous heroes and innovators, thinkers, philanthropists and civil rights leaders. They endured hardship, overcame obstacles, worked for causes greater than themselves, and left honored legacies.
What are Trump and his henchmen leaving behind? Lies, threats, bigotry, and the stench of treason.
370
@SMB
Again, Trump's behavior prompts one to ask, "What is he trying to hide?"
14
@Julie Carter,
And yet, almost no Republicans are asking it.
16
@Julie Carter He is following orders that Putin gave him during the private meetings with no other Americans present and a Russian interpreter.
11
I watched a good deal of the hearing today. Don't ask me why, I just did. Maybe I had too much time on my hands, or had too much morning caffeine and needed an outlet for angst-producing energy. My take aways? Well, I have to agree with Michael Cohen's implied opinion of himself...that is that he was not the type of guy you would want as an example for one's off-spring. That being said, I do believe he is remorseful. I do believe that he has a conscience. Was he immoral and unethical in his "past" life. Yes. But there is a difference between his character flaws and misdeeds and that of being amoral like his former boss now in Viet Nam coveting and salivating over a Nobel Peace Prize. Amorality means no conscience which is far more pathological. That brings me to the most absurd statement from a GOP congressman, and there were many from our "friends" across the aisle as well as stone-throwing which was biblical. This guy raised his voice and said more than once how "pathological" Cohen was and what a "pathological liar" he was. At first I laughed especially when I thought of Trump whose lies are legendary. But it is not funny, really. This is how almost half the nation thinks; this is the neurosis that is rampant...utter and deliberate denial of Trump's corruption with projection of his faults onto others. Freud would have a hey-day with this group..
12
I missed some of the hearing while running errands, so I'm glad you posted that link of that horrible moment when Mark Meadows, notorious birther himself, brought in that hapless woman to prove Trump was not a racist (or sexist, I guess). Mostly what we have seen on the media is Rashida Tlaib's justifiable indignation at this travesty and then the two people of color having to soothe Mr. Fragile White Man's wounded pride. During his diatribe, Lynne Patton stood there and he did all the talking. Classic. She even seemed to roll her eyes at one point, but who knows what she thinks--except in the sense of what it mattered what Cohen was thinking while he was still working for Trump and perhaps edging toward a crisis of conscience?
5
One lovely summer day during the Bush Jr years, my brother and I were arguing about the tax cuts, the Iran invasion and other Republican idiocy that now seems a lifetime ago. I asked him why he had become a Republican acolyte after growing up in a Democrat voting household. He said he had been a Democrat until they lost their way.
Ever since I have wondered how the Republicans lost their way and how along the way they picked up my brother. The Cohen hearings today did not enlighten me. How blind do people like my brother have to be to buy the Republicans' message. They look the voter straight in the eye while tearing up the government and say watch what we are doing, it proves that gov't is dishonest, wasteful and obstructionist to the American way.
what is the cure?
8
If 45 hadn't been so jealous of Pres. Obama and made the decision not to run, he could have carried on with his grifter/con man lifestyle with no one the wiser. By winning the presidency (or stealing it, as the case may be), he has now put himself, his family, and all his associates under the microscope. Pretty ironic that a man & family who has never felt the rules applied to them, will now be scrutinized. Bankruptcy & jail would be appropriate outcomes.
18
I suspect Trump could get the Nobel Prize for literature for his tax returns--they're undoubtedly fiction. That's almost as good as a Nobel Peace prize, right?
3
Cohen is a bad guy - he admits that and we all know that. Yes, that impacts his credibility, leaving it for everyone else to judge the veracity of his claims. But is this anything new? As noted by many, the criminal justice system constantly utilized criminal witnesses who’ve flipped. It is for the jury (in this case, Congress and Americans) to judge the evidence, but it isn’t inherently problematic that the witness has a shady past. And the Republicans seemed to ignore this entirely.
4
One more baffling chapter to the Trump fiasco is that the Trump followers I know , every single one , consider themselves huge , total patriots . They’d attack you if you didn’t stand for the anthem or didn’t pay homage to the flag . What is going on ?
10
Dear Gail Collins,
I simply love the way you see to the very core of the essential funny bone of, yes even these ludicrous, yet very important proceedings, which would fit perfectly well in a kindergarten setting, rather than a respectable institution.
4
Time to steal the old David Steinberg line about clients--they're five guys who share a brain--and slap it on the GOP members of the House Oversight Committee.
"he’s proud to be following in the presidential footsteps of intellectual mediocrity"
Does anybody remember former Sen. Roman Hruska of Iowa? He attempted to defend a Nixon Supreme Court nomination (Clement Haynesworth?) by saying:
"So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they? We can’t have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters and stuff like that there."
6
Today's finest insight was from the congressman who observed Republicans aren't angry that Cohen lied to Congress, they're angry he stopped lying to Congress.
19
Trump is our nation's drunk uncle, even if he's not a drinker.
Every time he speaks, he sounds like a man who thinks he can make reality conform to whatever he believes. He pontificates as if he understands things, but his solutions are simplistic (a Muslim ban? a wall? a summit?), his biases are obvious, and his incompetence is more and more apparent.
If Trump's our nation's drunk uncle, we're all desperately awaiting the end of this Thanksgiving dinner so "Uncle Don" will go home or to a federal prison where inmates play golf.
And our national nightmare will end . . .
7
I don't need to see Trumps taxes. That's not important. I want him removed from office. Period. End of discussion. I have had enough of this charade.
John~
American Net'Zen
14
@John
The tax returns are a path to removal.
There are 4 legal ways to remove Trump from office:
1) Defeat him in 2020. That requires 270 Electoral Votes.
2) Impeach him. That requires every Dem, every Ind, and 20 Repubs Senators to convict--67 votes.
3) 25th Amend Sect 4: That requires over half the Cabinet, the VP, and 2/3rds of BOTH Houses to make permanent.
4) Resignation--Not happening unless Trump is promised a Nixonian deal of a pardon against a sure-fire Impeachment conviction.
Showing Trump's criminal activity via his taxes is the path to them.
4
Ms. Collins catalogues well the many misdeeds of Trump and she gets a laugh out of it. But ultimately she is a pessimist and a defeatist. She has decided that nothing could get the Republicans to attack the President.
If Ms. Collins is right, all the investigations are for naught. And if you believe that the Republicans would defend Trump even if he committed murder, as Ms. Collins pretty much does, then it's a waste of time to seek impeachment.
But keep in mind that all white juries have acquitted blacks, six Republican justices voted for Roe v Wade, and, in 1974, the House voted 410-4 to begin an impeachment inquiry against Nixon.
What I am saying here, and what I believe is that the case against Trump could be better and if it were good enough -- if we had a tape proving without a shadow of a doubt that he planned and executed a cover-up -- just like Nixon -- then Trump would be history. And it's better to keep trying than to concede inevitable failure.
7
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings spoke after the hearing to defend bringing Cohen to testify, saying it was in the interests of the American people to fully understand how fully and sadly the political environment of the Trump regime had taken the nation off the rails.
Indeed. I hardly believe Cohen. I never believe Trump or any members of his family. It is impossible to believe the motives or have any confidence in the integrity of the Republican Party or its subservient minions. Jordan and Meadows were pitch perfect, growling and snapping, as they acted out their assignments as pit bulls in a back alley dog rings.
This was by no means a good day for the United States. It offered up a view of our nation's corrupt and sleazy underbelly where the language spoken is false, threatening and pathetic. That it is the language and the action of the White House reflect just how far we have lost our way as the scandal of this Administration unfolds.
7
"He is a racist, he is a con man, and he is a cheat” might as well be Trump's 2020 campaign slogan. Why not? It worked before.
"You had me at racist" was the judgment 63 million Trump supporting Americans rendered in 2016.
Republican committee members defend Trump because of who he is, not in spite of it. Tens of millions of Americans support Trump because of who he is, not in spite of it. They will not turn on him. The House may impeach, but if you want to find 20 Republican Senators who will vote to remove Trump you are going to need a time machine.
In the end, this will be settled on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Count up the votes and see who wins.
Hopefully Trump will be out of office before he destroys our democracy. And before the statute of limitations run out on his crimes.
9
Minds changed? How many different ways can you say no, like in no way?
Trump supporters will state a fact, Cohen is going to jail. Why? Because he is a liar. Why believe him now?
Turn the coin over, and the detractors, well, what can they say other than he’s a bad guy. How do you refute that?
Actions do, in fact, speak louder than words, at least in most cases. Woody Allen once observed in a general way that we are at a crossroads, one path leads to despair and total destruction, the other to mayhem. His fervent hope was that we chose the right one. Trump and his antics present us not with just two paths, bad enough, but multiples upon multiples. One-a-day.was fine for a pain reliever, but who ever heard of a pain giver, and an intentional one at that.
If you are a comedy writer, you have struck gold. Unfortunately, for the rest of us out here, what’s happening is no laughing matter.
2
The Cohen hearing was most notable for showing the moral bankruptcy of every single Republican present. Worst that can be said of some of the Dems is that they didn't appear particularly smart or verbally adept. But the Repubs showed their ethical sense has been corrupted. They postured about Cohen's lies, but Cohen, though no sweetie, had them nailed. They were doing exactly what he, Cohen had been doing for years, defending Donald Trump with lies and obfuscation. Unfortunately, Cohen is going to jail for what he did, and they are not.
1
Ivanka ... denounced the idea of a guaranteed minimum wage because she felt all Americans “want to work for what they get.” - says the daughter of the leader who signed a bill eliminating/reducing the tax on inherited wealth.
7
When do Republicans in Congress decide that Trump is more of a liability than an asset to their political futures? Didn't they see the huge loss in the 2018 election? Don't they see that if Trump is their candidate in 2020 it will be a historic loss?
Republicans may be blindly loyal, but they aren't politically ignorant. I'd be surprised if they don't cut their losses, embrace impeachment, and nudge Trump out in favor of a couple years of Pence. They can then run in 2020 having dumped the bad baggage.
61
@Ken L Don't be so sure. I think the reason why so many Republican's who used to be institutionalists are still backing Trump is because the people the represent still back Trump.
21
@Ken L It's because the Republicans in Congress are the dregs of what we all grew up knowing as the Republican Party.
14
@Lynn I wish Ken were right, but I'm fearful that Lynn is right. Too many people hear what they want to hear, and too many want to hear that it's acceptable to be racist and sexist and to lie on tax returns.
24
Welcome to the 2019 Republican Party, where vileness, criminality and bigotry are “baked in” to leadership expectations. Where a Presidential candidate distinguishes himself from the pack through middle school-level insults of opponents’ height and facial features.
I’m glad that my grandfather, who worked in the Eisenhower Administration, did not live to see such utter disgrace.
13
Trump should be glad that lying (per se) is not an impeachable offense. The GOP committee members would be all over him... or would they?
2
The Trump crime family and team is collapsing. Mr. Cohen comes off as a surprisingly credible witness.
It is oddly satisfying to watch him detail the facts of his part of the case against our criminal Mob Boss living in the White House.
At last the Republican house of cards is wavering.
PS~ Still awaiting those tax returns, and now that Cohen mentions it, his SAT scores and grades, another Trump fear of exposure.
8
@lechrist From Day 1, Trump has always been nothing but a ludicrous, utterly unconvincing facade, like his orange "tan" and "blonde" hair. He's been a laughing stock in New York society his entire life. Now he's a laughing stock anywhere Americans are capable of thought and have an ounce of decency. Obviously, that leaves out the Republican Party, its representatives and base.
2
Ahhh, those Republicans do have a short memory, don't they? They're appalled to be having a meeting on this subject. Yet, it wasn't that long ago that, when seven prior congressional investigation committees could find no smoking gun to nail Hillary Clinton, they decided an eighth committee was necessary.
Less than two months into being in the minority, they're already whining. Too bad. I suggest they buck up because they ain't seen nothin' yet.
9
Ms. Collins, let's try to look on the bright side here, and turn the trials and tribulations of Mr. Trump into beatitudes.
True, he does not look very well but then neither of us are planning to go to Hollywood. He has kept some of us on the qui vive, or high alert since the beginning of his presidency.
While you were busy slogging away in 'Dripping Springs', this reader was admiring 'Rembrandt's Eyes', authored by Simon Shava, far too challenging a work for my mental horizons but bringing to mind that he was the first photographer among artists. Had he portrayed Mr. Trump as a scoundrel, we will never know.
The president sounds compromised beyond hope and having long drowned in the Pool of Narcissus, it has given some Americans a passage in time to reassess their own morality and beliefs.
Perhaps some of us have had a vision that all nations with nuclear arms are now looking in this direction, while our allies from older countries are struggling to cope. America, temporarily indisposed.
Some of us may be feeling dumb at this stage, but not crazy. In summary, we appear to be in the midst of a moral recession and should be preparing for the aftermath. One might call it a healing season, a time of renewal, new beginnings, where we emerge like a phoenix, without pride, stronger and more resilient than ever.
AMERICA REDUX.
2
There was a day when Republicans would not stand for improprieties committed by their own President. Whether Cohen’s allegations are true or not, Republicans have shamefully disregarded their duty to act as a separate and coequal branch of government. History will not look kindly to the blatant pandering.
6
The new normal. Nothing is shocking. What a tragedy that is.
8
Remember the Watergate crisis? I do.
Even Republicans in the House (if memory serves) felt compelled to draw up articles of impeachment.
And then--stand up and tell the world why. Their choice of words was noteworthy.
"I found that MY PRESIDENT had done thus-and-such."
"MY PRESIDENT is guilty of thus-and-such."
"I was shocked to realize that MY PRESIDENT--"
This was when? Back in 1974. Some of this (I expect) was grandstanding. Explaining (to any number of wrathful conservatives) why, stilettos drawn, they were ganging up on Richard M. Nixon.
But this comes to mind too. There was (back then) a sort of sanctity attached to the words "President of the United States." Like a Shakespearean king--Lear or Richard II. We all remembered the martyred JFK. Some of us remembered FDR.
Boy, has that changed.
Numbers of people (including me) are exceedingly reluctant to preface Mr. Donald J. Trump with the sobriquet "President." We balk at saying "President Trump."
And here again--it cannot be stressed too much! We must not get USED to this. This must not become our new "normal." Mr. Trump has set new standards for lowness--those standards MUST be revised. Way upwards. Miles and miles upwards.
I remember talking a walk. Back in the 1990's. When Ms. Lewinsky's dress was being analyzed for--you know. It was like a dream. This isn't happening, I told myself.
And now?
No big deal.
What a guy!
My stars, what a guy!
5
If you like a good political joust, this hearing was your cup of tea. The Republicans kept trying to knock Cohen off the horse, and the Democrats kept trying to ask him for information while he was laying -- or lying, I never can get those words right -- on the ground.
We heard a little new information, but basically this was Cohen explaining that he's trying to crawl out of the swamp. Not the one Trump said he would drain. The one that Trump has lived in over his career. Actually, cesspool is a better description.
7
How interesting that one of Republican Congressman is from Dripping Springs, TX; the entire hearing is dripping with illegalities and intrigue with a layer of irony.
The constant drip, drip, drip of Trump's thuggery was flowing in full force during Michael Cohen's testimony.
Those close to Trump during his campaign and in his service since he was elected have been indicted or found guilty. Drip, drip, drip - there goes Michael Flynn, and now it is Paul Manafort, and over there is Roger Stone being told to shut up.
The drip , drip, drip is now reaching raging proportions and will soon swallow the mobster-in-chief. That is not the surprising or appalling aspect of this story on the drip, drip, drip phenomenon plaguing Trump; the surprising and appalling aspect is that the Republicans still are in his corner and their shamelessness on full display.
5
Why the insistence on seeing the tax returns? They will be just a pack of arithmetic lies like the financial records Cohen produced.
And don’t denigrate Papua New Guinea please. I’ve been there and they have a lot more integrity than the Republican Party.
2
Republicans chose to follow the talking points of false equivalency thereby smearing reason and truth itself. They all sang the same song of mis-associating the entirety of Cohen’s testimony with the lies he told for his boss. As if that would prevent him from having the ability to come clean.
3
We don't need to be completely Trump-obsessed, but we do need to be Trump-concerned. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, Trump secretly knows that we can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bullrings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead us wherever he wants.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
Public, televised, congressional hearings where a key operative addresses questions is the way out of this morass. The Republicans showed they have no answer. Allow them time to show their ineptitude.
Put it all out there.
4
No surprises here.
Cohen testified that he was a liar and a snake working for a liar and a snake. He testified that Trump was aware of financial shenanigans that were felonious and lied on his taxes. We learned how he goes about money laundering things like payoffs.
And about the conspiracy with Russian sources? Well, he didn't start it, or sign a deal, but he knew things were - um, problematic? - and used them anyway, without reporting the - problematicacy? - to the Federal government or FBI.
In essence, Cohen supported the broad image of a President who is both directly and indirectly corrupt and surrounds himself with corrupt people.
Should we be surprised after two years that the GOP just yawns and looks the other way (some may go the route of sticking their fingers in their ears and loudly singing "I can't hear you!")
No, we should not. Holding on to power is the GOP agenda, and they are caught between any sense of ethics they may have and a rabid base that votes in primaries.
"If you must break the law, do it to seize power; in all other cases observe it." Who knew the GOP reads Shakespeare?
163
@Cathy Correct the show does display that most politicians are pretty much just like Trump. And certainly not surprised by his greed, arrogance, and treachery. (treason)
3
@kdw
Why would you say politicians are all like trump when he was never a politician? He is a businessman. Perhaps all businessmen are like him. Perhaps that is the root of all this mess.
Do not throw the baby out with the slimewater.
2
Rich, scared, and guilty, he chose client well.
Thanks Gail, for once again adding some comic relief to the dourness of yesterday's hearing. Perhaps the only difference between that 'C student with a sense of humor' you mentioned
and Individual-1 is that at least the former has a sense of humor
while the latter will never be anything more than a very bad joke.
But seriously, folks, do yourselves and your country a favor by listening to the closing remarks delivered by Chairman Elijah Cummings, then live by them. That's all you really need to know.
The rest is just noise.
11
Surprising that no one mentions 'Trump' speaking in code.
He never told me to lie but implied that I should by sticking to the story.
I wonder, if journalists will now start to decipher 'Tromp's ' code.
It seems that the Republicans have a good handle on the 'code'.
7
none of this matters until mitch McConnell says it does.
3
Let us not forget Trump's remarks before leaving for North Korea. He said that the results of his meeting with Kim Jong-un would be "very tremendous." When he returns, look for him to spin it as "very, very tremendous," in typical Trump-speak.
8
@Whole Grains -- it appears you haven't seen the news; talks collapsed, Kim wanted the sanctions removed for "denuclearizing a fraction of North Korea" ... and Trump walked away ... all that anybody could do in that situation.
2
Today Michael Cohen proved House GOP members willingly abandoned their oaths of office to uphold our democracy and the Constitution when they actively protected Trump from investigations. It was a very embarrassing day for them as they truly had nothing, but Michael Cohen brought facts - copies of checks signed by the president and don jr for Stormy’s payoff. Definitely buying his book.
12
Trump's malign but powerful influence has enabled him to corrupt not only his inner circle but an entire political party. The "art of the deal" lies in recognizing the lengths people will go to to realize their wishes. Tax cuts, ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justices, lip service to evangelicals and license to degrade the environment are the bargain Trump offered for a party's soul. So far, the Republican Party is pleased with the deal.
13
I guess Ivanka doesn’t consider herself an American. After all, her current position was handed to her without doing any work at all. She has no experience, expertise, qualifications, or training to be a “presidential senior advisor”. She got the job because she is Daddy’s favorite babysitter. Her apparel business was also a gift, as are her duties in the Trump Organization. Without the guaranteed income coming from her father, Ivanka would be a sales manager for some large corporation. If she worked for it, that is.
9
The most prophetic words from Michael Cohen were his warning that those who blindly followed Donald Trump, as he once did, would also come to pay the price.
Just think of it: if the loyalty to Trump of a small beans lawyer could wreak this much havoc, then by comparison, how about the loyalty to Trump of an entire party?
11
@NM -- esteemed daughter,
Cohen said that a close association with the president is "intoxicating". Now it's perfectly clear why Republicans and his supporters have stumbled around Washington the last two years without getting anything done. They all need to sign up with AA.
6
Cohen has a very simple answer to all those who claim that his testimony cannot believed. "Yes, I've lied to Congress and I'm going to jail in part because of my lies. I'm now telling the truth because, if I lie again, several more years will be added to my sentence."
7
@Martin Abundance: I think Cohen has also discovered that telling the truth is so much easier to do than lying...
Being president has got to be pretty miserable for Trump. Flew too close to the sun. The next family dinner will not be pleasant.
The best takeaway was Cohen's warning about going down with Trump. I wonder if any of the GOP members got the message.
10
To be fair, there was an elephant in the room. Unfortunately, it now symbolizes what the Republican Party has become.
8
With Trump it is a game of hide and seek.He hides everything deleterious like college transcripts,tax returns ,property values and, yes, even former female companions.With this much hidden from view , he feels safe to invent himself as a genius and a fabulously wealthy developer.He has not been careful choosing his friends and nominees in government.They have disappointed him and he has tried to hide them by firing them.Unfortunately for him they do not disappear-instead they plead guilty in court or cooperate or write a best selling book.Trump has tried to hide so much and Mueller has been seeking the truth..The presidency was never supposed to be a game of hide and seek!
6
Stranger than a 1973 science fiction parody-- yet there is little joy to be taken in hearing this insider's tell-all- as the selling off of our ideals continues with a surreal embrace of a brutal dictator, the continued assault on the separation of powers, the fusion of church and state , the failure to understand the value of science and the ignorance on Economics, Education and infrastructure.
I think we are so deep in season 2 of the reality show and are so inured to the lies that we cannot recognize where we are or how we got here- would that we could click our heels three times and rewind to a time when family and neighbors could discuss politics without venom.
2
Given an opportunity to rise to the occasion of an investigation with actual evidence against Trump, the Republicans failed to do much with their "question time" other than whimper and whine how unfair it was of the Democrats to hold hearings.
To the amazement of the audience, one deluded representative even brought Trump's "black friend" to the hearing to prove Trump is not a racist as Cohen claimed in his opening statement. There are just 435 representatives elected to the House of Representatives out of the whole population of US adult citizens; And the person who thought this was a smart Republican tactic was elected to be one of them. The newly elected Representative from Michigan refused to accept her role as the silent observer to this Republican stagecraft; She was insulted and said so even without the support of the Democratic Chair of the committee.
Wise up, old men of both parties. The newly elected women will not be silent or put in their "place" by unwritten rules and norms broken every day by Trump and his rubber-stamp Congress. We will not be used as "tokens" or "props". We will be heard.
8
Too hilarious. Trump tries to maintain his "presidential" stuff, but he is so far beyond credibility his minions can't respond.
5
Trump bailed out on Kim Jong-un in a heartbeat. Trump has bigger fish to fry at home with the Cohen revelations. Tweets galore are in the hopper, for sure. Besides, how important can North Korea's nuclear program be? What's a little nuclear war, between friends, after all?
Winston Churchill said: "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."
The truth will set you free. But that's just more "fake news," Donald Trump. In your case, it's going to lock you up.
With a vengeance.
8
It's the ultimate defense:
"Everyone in the Dear Leader's orbit is so shady and corrupt--how can you believe a word they say?"
Or as Rick Santorum (R-Inquisition) put it last night on CNN (paraphrased), "The President lies about everything. Why should lying about his Russian connections be considered newsworthy?"
The former Senator went on to focus not on credible allegations of crimes leveled against our head of state but rather on the Democrats' appalling insistence that Cohen testify on the same day that President T and Comrade Kim, like Punch and Judy, smiled and snarled to distract from the unfolding personal horror show. "Couldn't they have waited a couple of days?" One wonders how his argument might have morphed had they done just that.
In a possibly related news item today, conservative attorney Eric Miller was confirmed as an appeals court judge without the blessing of either of his home-state Senators, something that according to the Washington Post, is unprecedented. So, as the House GOP chorus keens and distracts, and Trump erects a Potemkin summit in a "socialist" country he can't stop praising, the remotely-controlled MAGA bulldozer in which Trump in a hard hat pretends to drive threatens to scrape away and remove any social advances achieved since 1930.
Voting rights? Racial justice and security? Equality for LGBTQ people? Reproductive choice?
As for the GOP whining about investigating an administration during wartime, I can only reply, "Benghazi."
39
@Jack Mahoney sir. I am attaching a bill for dry cleaning, a result of coffee spraying out my nose upon reading your identification of Rick Santorum. Funniest thing I have read in weeks!
3
I didn’t watch the Cohen hearings, largely because I already knew Trump’s character flaws. Instead, I spent the day in the great reading room of the Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress. By chance, I happened to sit opposite the portal dedicated to law, bearing the inscription, "Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her voice is the harmony of the world.” Over the past two years, we’ve certainly seen how true this is: led by someone whose life is a repudiation of the law, we have come to expect the kind of chaos Michael Cohen described in his testimony.
16
I remember Bush on the campaign trail in 2000 boasting at a speech at Yale, his alma mater, the he was a "C" student.
The crowd went wild--standing ovation.
Yale, the national epicenter of knowledge and wisdom, celebrating incompetence and mediocrity in our political leadership.
29
@Lumpy,
There is a line in Dangerous Liaisons 'intellectuals are stupid', causing half the viewers in the audience to slump in their seat with relief.
It has not occurred to half the Nation that we are in need of a well informed president who cares about the people he represents in his role of superior to all, servant to all.
My father was a Yalie, and used to embroider his stories into anecdotes. As for boasting anywhere, let alone on a campaign trail, that one is deficient in education, it is a great incentive for students and future leaders not to do their homework.
Wisdom may be far to reach at the best of times, and we are being given a sighting of when America does not function well without a true believer and weak governance, it impacts poorly on the rest of the world, where hope for a better future takes a stumble.
Yeah, I didn't watch either. I already knew Trump was a racist, con man, and cheat. I also already knew that the GOP in Congress has collectively lost its spine. That they don't get the irony of saying they can't trust Cohen because he is a known liar while constantly defending a man in the White House who lies constantly is not even a bit surprising.
I appreciate y'all for watching/listening. I'm counting on the media to tell me if anything of actual interest comes out of all of this.
29
Cohen volunteered even when he knew he would be treated as a rat by the GOP. Never the less he had a few moral standards left to expose Trump for what he is and make government more transparent.
The testimony might have been a charade to watch for some and a close Russian friend told me she was glad that this kind of “show” doesn’t happen in Russia. It is however what differentiates liberal democracies from totalitarianism and if we want to live in a free and democratic society we MUST have open hearings like these.
We have taken our democracy for granted for way too long time. What our forefathers and foremothers fought and died for will disappear if we don’t maintain transparency and accountability....even if it comes to listening to a convict.
29
Cohen came across as an humble and decent man who had a lapse in judgment. However, any association with Trump seems to be the fastest ticket to prison. If Trump were to do the decent thing he would pardon Cohen but Trump never does the decent thing.
19
@Clark Landrum
Not such a humble and decent man based on the tapes of him bullying others in the past, countless scams and lies unconnected with Trump, etc., etc. Interesting how he finds religion this late in the game. I'm sure the prospects of a Rule 35 motion and a book deal helps. Ugh.
@Clark Landrum - A humble and decent man would never work for Trump.
@DR
Yeah, I know he brought it on himself but I still feel sorry for the guy. His association with Trump ruined his life. Some of the radical Republicans are even bringing his family into the act.
That you Gail for calling attention to one big takeaway from the hearing, namely that the red wall that is GOP alignment with the President is perhaps not such a big and beautiful wall as we may have thought. It seems as if the Republican members of Congress are lacing up their shoes and starting to look for their coats and hats because before too long, they will have to either descend the gangplank as they depart the good ship Trump, or stick with him to walk the plank in 2020.
42
My opinion of mr. trump and of republicans in general continues to sink.
I agree completely with the writer who states we need to vote for the alternative to mr. trump in 2020. And please people, do not waste votes on an independent and dilute the effort!
69
Just a few months ago didn’t we hear a snippet of recorded phone conversation between trump and Cohen discussing the hush money payments to Stormy? If memory serves, I believe Cohen is heard telling trump not to pay with checks. The irony of seeing copies of checks displayed during yesterday’s hearing was almost too much.
28
Not that it matters in terms of legality, but Cohen actually told the president not to pay with cash, responding, “oh, no, no, no” at that idea.
Don’t get me wrong, that does not change the criminal nature of Trump’s activities (money is money), but I just happened to remember what was played on that tape.
6
Trump didn't pay Stormy with his checks, he repaid Cohen!
1
@John
I brlieve he told not to pay in cash.
2
Complicit GOP'ers are the ones who have become 'inured' and can no longer see themselves - the rest of us are perfectly aware of the toxic walking nightmare that is Clear & Present Danger 45*.
His excuse to Complicit GOP'ers will be the same as it has been previously: "the voters knew who I was when they elected me", which he has repeated so often to himself that he forgets he lost the popular vote by 3,000,000+.
Un-indicted Co-conspirator 45*, his Complicit Crowd of McConnell, Cornyn, and perjury-suborning, pardon-dangling lawyers, have run out of plate-spinning spectacles for the Grifter-in-Chief and his RICO-conflicted spawn to dazzle the public with; every grifter knows that the party's over when they can no longer move on to cheat, lie and swindle their next mark, because their reputation precedes them, making artifice no longer possible.
50
My favorite story (we’d already heard the outlines) was the one about a secret bidder in an auction in the Hamptons. The secret bidder drove up the price of a Trump portrait, which he purchased with secret funds from Trump. Trump promptly sold the painting to his charity foundation and kept the painting.
This was all followed by a tweet bragging about the high price of the portrait. Life in Trump tower.
140
@Maryellen Simcoe,
Thank you for this exposure of a portrait of our current president. It is probably on the attic wall of his tower, where each day, it resembles Wilde's 'Dorian Gray', and no amount of whitewashing is going to be able to erase the lies and deceit from its features.
4
@Miss Ley
Actually, I think it hangs at Mar-a-Lago.
2
@Miss Ley. My other favorite from the hearings is the claim Cohen made that he communicated with the prep school and colleges Trump attended to make sure that they didn’t release his SATs or transcripts. (Who thinks about SATs after the age of 25, unless your children are taking them?)
This, in contrast to his birther rantings about Obama, demanding his transcripts from college and law school. Mind boggling.
It simply does not matter to the Republicans in Congress, or to the legions of Trump supporters, how many laws he violated, how racist he is, or what other failings he has.
For one group of his supporters, appointing anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court is sufficient to wash away all his sins. For another, racism and anti-immigrant talk (and actions) is the only important thing. For a third, it is pro-business, pro-plutocrat tax policies.
So, to between 35% and 40% of Americans, nothing that may come out at the hearings will matter in the least.
What does matter is if the rest of us fully understand that the only thing that will matter in 2020 is for each of us to vote for the only alternative to Trump, and that is whomever wins the Democratic nomination. Even if you would prefer someone else than her or him, a vote for the eventual nominee is a necessity. We see now the result of stay-at-home and vote third-party protests, and we cannot allow that to happen again.
The country you save may be your own.
146
@John Graybeard
And please, please, please don't vote for any 3rd party candidate because he or she "reflects your personal values." The election is not about your "personal values." It's about who occupies the oval office.
5
@John Graybeard
I hope that we all will vote our hearts in the primary; vote our heads in the general.
1
There is a story in Don Quijote where a local lord has decreed that a person who tells a lie must be executed. So a man comes up and when questioned where he was going, he answered: "I am going to be executed". Now the question is, if he isn't executed, he is lying, but if he is executed, he has told the truth and shouldn't be executed. For whatever is worth, think of Cohen's testimony.
29
Frank, cute Cervantes tale, but Cohen was once a liar, often for Trump, and has now decided to accept responsibility and expose Trump by telling the truth.
He was credible, convincing, and persuasive. And, all the Republicans could do is chant, “Liar, lair, pants on fire!” as if their own buffoon Trump wasn't already a massive inferno!
3
One palpable shift in the tenor of the hearing was when Cohen responded to a question by noting that not a single GOP representative had asked anything about Trump, but were content with bashing Cohen about his transgressions.
Right, wrong, or otherwise, I give Cohen credit for not jumping the boards and whacking Meadows, Jordan, Hice, and others with a stick! I doubt I could have exercised that kind of self restraint.
117
Michael Cohen's explosive testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee was a joy to behold yesterday. Only the Republicans on the committee didn't get the joy of seeing their president's life laid out before us all by his personal lawyer of 11 years who turned on his mob boss for the greater good of our democracy.
We, who remember witnessing the Army/McCarthy hearings in the 1950s and the Watergate hearings of 1973, felt we were watching our country falling again. Why is it that Trump associates and friends are going to prison? What's the end game? Oh, the horror of Cohen's disclosure that Trump threatened legal action to keep his school grades secret! Will the Democrats get their hands on Trump's tax returns?
While Cohen was testifying all day yesterday, his former boss was in Hanoi meeting with Kim Jong-un, his close friend ("We fell in love!"). The happy couple broke up abruptly -- no deal! -- and Trump left Vietnam berfore the planned signing (of nothing) luncheon. Trump walked. So how will our 45th president secure his Nobel Peace Prize now? And how will Trump secure the remaining two years of his chaotic and dystopian presidency? Stay tuned.
68
@Nan Socolow I like you observation: "Oh, the horror of Cohen's disclosure that Trump threatened legal action to keep his school grades secret!" That's a gem.
2
And remember the bad guy of the McCarthy hearings was Roy Cohn. Cohn was famed for his ruthlessness, immorality and lying. Cohn was personal mentor to Trump when Trump was young. On his deathbed, Cohn warned the world to watch out for Trump because he has a black void where his heart should be.
1
@LEE
But of course, along with the birth certificate, Trump demanded Obama's academic records!
2
How telling that Cohen warned his conservative colleagues not to go down the same path he chose. It will be interesting to watch Trump’s 2019 supporters distance themselves from him in 2020 - if not sooner.
42
Michael Cohen was much more believable than the man on whose behalf he lied and cheated for a decade has ever been.
Cohen was also more convincing than the outraged Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, who are now accommodating Donald Trump by attacking Cohen for – of all things -- past lying.
We shouldn’t take comfort in that comparison. The last time we cheered honest testimony given against an ardent and outraged Trump supporter, we ended up with Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
This time ought to be different, since Donald Trump seems unlikely to succeed in his efforts to corrupt the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, at whose direction Cohen is now testifying or withholding testimony.
For now, we should indulge ourselves with the mental image of the only escape hatch on Trump’s sinking submarine being tightened down by a group of honest men and women, working together.
59
Perhaps these Republican congressmen were running out the hearing’s clock without offering any substantive defense, in the expectation that Trump would soon override the impact of Cohen’s entire testimony by announcing a brilliant, Nobel-worthy plan for peace and stability in Korea.
29
Trump's tax returns must be made public via the House Ways and Means Committee. It is more imperative now than ever.
119
The House Republicans were only interested in acting as Trump's defense attorneys. They certainly had no interest in upholding their oaths of office and acting in the interest of the United States.
131
@Seldoc
Yes, this was shockingly evident during the hearing, and painful to watch — just a bunch of schoolyard bullies taunting their victim. It's interesting to see that they don't have any other place to go on this. They can go after the witness but they can't really defend the perpetrator. Repubs are kind if digging their own hole…
4
@Seldoc
They proceeded with the same skill levels required to run a Trump casino.
1
Anyone who doesn't know that the Republicans are joined at the hip with Trump has been living is a cave all his/her life.
63
The Republican response reveals that the party has morphed into a cult, defending their infallible leader at all costs.
Cohen's courageous testimony was that of the "canary in the coal mine" with nothing left to lose.
I hope that he and his family will be safe.
139
The 21st century Republican Party, shoot the messenger, don't mess with the details, remember those are alternative facts, Sara S says so. Judy Woodruff asks a GOP rep if Cohen is just making these things up, he shows us the GOP evasion technique.
Cohen details a long list of Swindler Dons actions, he was the fixer, but now he is just another convicted liar. It seems as if quite a few of the liar in Chief's retinue are convicted liars, what a revelation. So the GOP defense is to tell us liars lie, a real education. As I have said recently, from the point of view of Social Anthropology, Republicans are a different species, Homo Republicansis, will be the subject for PHD thesis for many years to come.
We already know he conned desperate unemployed students to enroll in his fake university, subject of a RICO suit. Oh the bone spurs, the airline, the steaks, and a few bucks help from Fred, just a few mind you, all well undocumented just like the workers at his golf courses.
So who to believe, an attorney that sells his soul to Mephistopheles, or a bankruptcy king who has narrated some 4K documented prevarications? We are living in the age of alternative truths, a legacy to leave to our heirs.
69
What Cohen confirmed most fundamentally is that Trump has been a crook forever. It was what he dreamed about when he was a kid holed up in that dreary military academy. This basic fact makes both the Justice Department office for the Southern District of New York and the State Attorney General major players for prosecuting Trump's pre-presidential antics in all their endless profusion, subject of course to applicable statutes of limitation. In other words, even a complete killing of the Mueller report doesn't get Trump off the legal hook. Cohen disclosed Plan B in all its glory. Mueller may end up simply playing a decoy.
Meanwhile, Trump is in Hanoi billing and cooing with Kim Jong-un and posing for his upcoming Nobel Peace prize photo-op. Despite its more ludicrous aspects, this behavior should be encouraged. Trump is not going to sit by passively while Congress and Mueller methodically lay out the premises for his demise. He desperately needs a high-profile game-changing "win", preferably focused on a locale far from Washington DC.
Playing peacemaker in Korea is likely the most harmless of the options on offer. It seems clearly preferable to invading Venezuela to set up a puppet regime and take over its oil fields. Anything that gets the The Donald to fantasize himself as a messenger of global harmony is probably better than the alternatives.
Trump isn't just going to go away. He is going to fume and rage and scheme. Craving the Nobel prize is a benign diversion.
61
@woofer -- writing from Kew Gardens, where Trump grew up, one of the local topics among people of a certain age is gossiping about the young Trump. I've run into several people who claim they knew him as a teenager; nobody (and I mean nobody, not even the rare local Republican) has anything nice to say about him.
But a question I've asked of those who knew him is "what did he do that made his parents decide to send him off to a disciplinary military academy," as a young teenager?
The official line is that he was "sneaking off to Manhattan."
Young teenagers go to Manhattan all the time from here -- a $2.75 Metrocard gets you there. The question is what was he doing at that age, in Manhattan? He sure wan't going to the Met to look at art.
And I've heard three different stories, all criminal, none consistent. Could he have possibly done them all? Or are they urban legend?
But as to "Trump has been a crook forever," the evidence is that as a pubertal teenager Trump did something(s) that convinced his parents to send him to what amounts to rich-kid's Juvie Hall, and reading between the lines what it probably means is that the cops told his parents "get him out of town or we're taking him in."
40
@woofer - And of course by now we know that he is coming back with no deal, emptyheaded as usual.
1
@woofer
Well, the North Korea deal fell through. Am afraid that Venezuela is next. Then again, there's India & Pakistan to deal with.
1
Some time ago there was a report that said the head of loans at Deutsche Bank - the only bank willing to lend to Trump- is the son of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy. There was speculation that Kennedy retired early to give Trump a second conservative judge on the Supreme Court and also to shield his son from questionable loans to Trump. Haven't hear much about that piece.
Now with Cohen testimony about Deutsche Bank and inflated Trump net worth isn't it time that Congress look at that piece again? Unless, of course, the GOP is afraid of what might come out.
398
@Elizabeth Wong
Please, NYT, follow up on this with an investigative piece!
32
@Elizabeth Wong
Some things just seem to go down the memory hole, don’t they? And this is one that - almost - seems too corrupt to believe.
21
@Elizabeth Wong
Thanks for bringing back that very important point. At the time I wondered if Kennedy's resignation was a quid pro quo to protect his son!
22
The great irony that seemed to get lost on all the hand-wringing Republicans was that Cohen's lies were mostly at the behest and benefit of the President. They hammered him about these lies as if they occurred in a vacuum and not spat out so regularly in defense of their hero at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
No, Cohen was (and is) no saint but the fact that they had no point of reference to the notion of redeeming oneself speaks more to their own shortcomings than Mr. Cohen's.
190
@Coolhand -
"The great irony that seemed to get lost on all the hand-wringing Republicans was that Cohen's lies were mostly at the behest and benefit of the President."
That was killing me, too, but it's to be expected. The Rs can't see the ironic forest for the ironic trees.
You'd think these old white lawyers had never seen a mob mouthpiece before. They have, of course.
Taking the fall for a mob boss is one thing. Taking a fall for an American president is something else all together.
"Dat's a nice democratic republic ya got dere. Be a shame if anything should happen to it . . ."
Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
7
@Coolhand Don't forget too, as Cohen pointed out himself, he is the son of Holocaust survivors. He's no saint, but he can still play the victim card as a convicted criminal!
Ivanka Trump might at least have found the easy target that had been gratuitously provided by the authors of the Green New Deal memo: the inclusion of those "unwilling to work" among recipients of a guaranteed minimum income.
Instead, she fumbled her mask of intelligent awareness and showed herself to be the Marie Antoinette of our time. Well, maybe not *the* Marie Antoinette, but a prime example of the type.
People who "want to work for what they get" need work that enables them to get what it takes to live. If they can't get it, they need a community of fellow human beings who will give up a little of their own to meet that need.
Most Americans undoubtedly want to work for what they get, but they shouldn't have to suffer for what Ivanka doesn't get.
190
@Longestaffe
Brilliant! I think the jury's out on whether to "give up a little of their own to meet that need" if the gains are ill got. Really ill got (sorry, worth repeating).
2
AOC was composed and focused. Good job opening the topic of Donald's shady tax strategy regarding valuation of his properties.
256
I agree. The three other newly elected Democratic women on the committee asked incisive questions too. Putting these stellar new lawmakers on this committee is yet another feather in Speaker Pelosi’s cap. She keeps proving herself over and over to be the backbone of the Democratic Party and more than a match for Trump.
190
@Barbara Ann Katie Hill was a standout. Pressley, Speier as well. Tlaib took the thing off the rails, embarrassed herself, and politicized what was supposed to be a character and fitness audit of Donald Trump.
Amash should be an ally.
With AOC, I think the takeaway point is preparation and calculated speech supported by research and thought are better than foolish Twitter quips and rushed bills with sloppy language. I hope she and her staffers learn from this--she's obviously got the heart to be a good representative, but she needs to work on calculation, presentation, and, above all temperament. (And no, this is not a gender biased statement--as an impulsive young male it's a recognition of some of my own shortcomings in her).
5
@ogn
Cohen went into some detail about this topic in his opening statement. He also provided the financial documents to the committee.
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has been investigating the Trump for some time.
3
The Republican "questioning" (but really just smearing the already smeared) of Michael Cohen felt similar to the congressional Republicans' attacking Steve King a few weeks ago for his latest round of white supremacist remarks. Both Cohen and King serve as surrogates for Trump, in that the GOP wants to appear principled in criticizing people who have said and done terrible things, while stubbornly refusing to condemn Trump himself for having said and done the same. But they can't have it both ways. There's no such thing as being fractionally principled.
Until the GOP finds the spine to stand up to Trump, he will own them outright. I wonder if any of them realizes that for today at least, Michael Cohen, the man they maligned all day to his face, showed more principle and resolve than any of them. Nah, that's probably wasted on them.
165
Given what the Russians may have on Trump, what do you thing is known about these other politicians? Perhaps they are operating under blackmail as well?
8
@Dsmith
This is just a hunch, but one I can't shake -- I think maybe Russian money is flowing into their campaign coffers.
Cohen served his purpose as a negative character witness for the Don. He also drew out the GOP stalwarts to defend Trump, something they may regret when the grandkids want to change their last name.
The mendacity of Domestic Trump, which Cohen was confined to by Mueller rules, is nothing compared to International Trump, where the most spectacular malfeasance lies.
Trump has bonded with his heroes, Putin, Kim Jong Un, MBS, Duterte, Netanyahu and orher strong men for a reason.
Like Putin, he defines the central leadership challenge not as living up to our values, but as using unchecked state power over imagined chaos.
Russians are familiar with this because the Putin controlled media provides a continuous split screen of chaos and power. Americans first heard this new construct in the Trump Inaugural speech about "carnage" in our cities.
It is almost as if Trump attended "State Controlled Media 101" in Moscow. However he came by his ideas, which have remarkable alignment with those of Putin, they certain fit into his foreign policy direction.
85
It's strange to admit this, but I found myself feeling a twinge of admiration for Michael Cohen today. The easy, uncalculating way he spoke made me think he was telling the truth, and he had a cool demeanor towards the Republicans' scorn. He reminded me of Judd Nelson in the Breakfast Club getting ever-more detentions from Paul Gleason.
I just saw the clip of Mr Cohen telling the committee's Republicans (paraphrasing), "I did what you're doing - protecting Mr Trump - for ten years. It didn't work out well for me, and it won't for you, either."
I am satisfied with what happened today.
689
@noke "The easy, uncalculating way he spoke made me think he was telling the truth."
That's what I thought, more or less, then I gave the matter some thought. As a for-instance: his characterization of his father-in-law as having "been in the clothing business" who "happened to have invested in Trump properties" is not exactly a lie. But it's not even close to the whole truth -- i.e. his father-in-law was convicted in 1993 for offenses related to money laundering, had given Cohen his start in the taxi business (i.e. the clothing business was only one of his many commercial interests), and "invested" in Trump properties in a way that has made many people wonder if he was "investing" on behalf of certain Russian "investors" and then got Trump to hire Cohen as a way of returning the favor. . .
21
@Richard I agree. His saying that it was Charlottesville and Helsinki that set him on the road to reform also sounded contrived & self-serving. The irony is that, because Trump's transparent and obvious corruption means nothing to Republicans, Democrats gamely look for smoking guns among Trump's inner circle, where dishonesty is the price of admission.
2
@noke
It doesn't really matter how you, or anyone, felt. All good liars make you feel that they're telling the truth. But Cohen knew that the FBI was hanging on his every word waiting to pounce if he lied again to Congress. That, to me, means that relevant factual statements are true. Importantly, the warning that Cohen gave to Republican Congressmen applies to everyone who protects Trump, from Ivanka down to the voter in West Virginia.
47
I am commenting on the quote from Ivanka. Thank you Gail for including that. Ivanka is clearly out of touch with mainstreet. How could she, is her wealthy, opulent world believe that Americans wish to work for less than a living wage? How could Ivanka believe that Americans wish to work for wages that will not pay the rent or feed their children? And then is Ivanka also expecting that food stamps should be cut so those very same people can perhaps work two or three jobs and still be homeless? Is Ivanka expecting that Americans are so happy to work for less than a living wage and at the same time have affordable health care taken away from them? Thank you for exposing the great rift between the realism of everyday American life and the wealthy tribe in the White House.
481
@Concerned in Portland
She seems to be confusing the minimum wage with a guaranteed income. She probably thinks only the superrich should get a guaranteed income.
231
I don’t think Ivanka believed that Americans want to work for a less than livable wage -it’s just that she doesn’t care
55
@Concerned in Portland
She seemed to use "wage" incorrectly, as something I could receive without work. The minimum wage is always a paid sum for labor. As commonly used, the term minimum wage is tantamount to "guaranteed minimum wage," as it refers to government mandated minimum payment for an hour of labor.
Given those clear and easily understood definitions, Ivanka's statements were simply nonsensical.
29
"Cohen testified that Trump had him going back and forth with Forbes magazine in an attempt to get a good spot on the Wealthiest list. While simultaneously trying to push down the income he reported for tax purposes."
Only Trump could simultaneously devalue his properties to lower his taxes while also trying to up his net worth for Forbes. And he says Don Jr. has poor judgment?
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I wonder how Don Jr. felt about writing checks (when Ivanka and Dad were busy) to cover up a brief affair from his step-mother (who may be younger than he is) and Dad's 3rd wife.
They don't call him Tabloid Trump for nothing. That is, when they're not calling him a lot of somethings, including a liar, cheat, and con man.
The above "they" is generic, because the "they" Republicans didn't call him anything--no, they reserved all their epithets for Michael Cohen, which is their way of shooting the messenger.
267
@christineMcM-Since you mentioned Tabloid Trump, I wish Michael Cohen had been asked: "How many other cash-and-kill hush payments did you make involving Mr. Trump and other women?" Also: "You claimed Mr. Trump did not hit Melanie in the elevator, that he would never do that. Did Mr. Trump hit other women that you know about?" You said Mr. Trump asked you to lie to Melanie about Stormy Daniels, what were you told to say?"
38
@christineMcM I live in a town with one of Trump's golf courses. By virtue of housing 9 goats on the property, he got a "farm assessment." So we're subsidizing his property taxes. This is how he rolls.
30
@sharpshin
At least the goats can be used to eat any poison ivy, thus limiting the use of pesticides!
1
Gail, if I hadn't watched and listened to the hearing myself, I would have thought you were making this up. Truth truly is stranger than fiction.
151
The GOP today showed their ongoing Profile in Spinelessness. They are not working for all Americans. They stand with Trump just to keep their cushy job of collecting money from their rich donors.
Let's hope the Democrats can show how much better they are and win in 2020.
174
It's not easy defending the the Trump Toilet as the greatest porcelain god in American history, but the Russian-Republicans stepped up to the plate and hit it completely out of the Corruption R Us ballpark.
Never mind the 25-alarm industrial fire that is the lawless Trump Administration, the Grand Old Phonies refuse to ask any questions about the 2016 Russian invasion and prefer to simply ignore the message, shoot the messenger and pledge allegiance to the flag and the Russian republic for which it now stands.
The Cohen hearing was merely the latest abandonment of the Constitution and country by these neo-Confederates.
They abandon the Constitution every election cycle with their vote-rigging by every crooked means necessary - hello Mark Harris ! Monarch McConnell happily abandoned the Constitution in 2016 to rig the Supreme Court; the GOP happily abandoned the separation of powers principle by supporting their Naked Emperor's declaration of a fake border wall emergency; and they happily abandoned their Constitutional House Oversight duties for yet another swim in the overflowing Trump Toilet.
Why are these fake, frauds and phonies permitted to wear those little American flags on their lapels ?
They're a mutant strain of anti-democratic, authoritarian-religious cultists that never met a page of the Constitution they couldn't use for a bonfire to maintain their deranged thirst for lies, power and serving the Lord of Mammon.
America deserves better than a GOP Toilet.
642
@Socrates
Not to digress, but wouldn't it be great if the honor of wearing a flag lapel pin had to be earned, by having done active service in the military, and better yet, having combat experience? First Amendment issues? Maybe. But then again, this may be one instance of many where "patriots" have bent the rules about the display of the flag.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler would have to discontinue including flags on the back of every pickup they sell.
Btw, my father is a WW2 vet (Okinawa and other places). He and his contemporaries NEVER felt the need to wear a pin.
95
...or maybe, we as a country, got exactly what we deserve.
The question...is the population, the electorate changing significantly enough to pull us out of the proverbial swamp? Do the recent elections indicate some sort of 'essential change?'
Remember that Sir Winston said "The best argument against democracy, is spending 5 minutes with one of your constituents."
Winnie was good.
And anyway, we're supposed to be a 'Representational democracy'. The level of that representation has deteriorated beyond recognition...don't think it's always been that way...or has it? Hmmmmmmm!
30
@CRL - We're not being represented; we're being ruled over, since the size of the House was capped, counteracting G. Washington's (talk about "Founders Intent") design:
https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/enlarging-the-house-of-representatives/
as well as one of James Madison's proposed 12 amendments, 10 of which became our Bill of Rights:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2018/to-fix-congress-make-it-bigger-much-bigger/
The situation of a static number of Representatives having larger and larger constituencies has made Americans feel more and more remote from unresponsive solons, who are easier and easier for special interests to control under Citizens United.
A capped House of Representatives is a flaw which will be fatal to our democracy if we disregard the words - and clear intent - of Gen. Washington.
24
Yes, Gail, the really bad thing about this hearing was the way the Republicans attempted to defend trump. Many appeared nervous as they read their prepared speeches. Some, like Jody Hice from Georgia, came across as totally tongue tied.
Clay Higgins from Louisiana babbled that he's arrested many people and that Cohen should be concerned. The thing is, Cohen has already been convicted. Higgins sounded like the the great Strother Martin in that magnificent movie, "Cool Hand Luke". Maybe Higgins was hinting that Cohen could go to one of those Southern prisons like the one that Paul Newman went to in that movie. "Anybody who criticizes trump spends a night in the box," to paraphrase the dorm manager Carl.
The irony is that the Democrats and Cohen came across totally calm. Really. They were the adults in the room. And worse, the Republican committee members really did a bad job of representing the people who voted for them. Jim Jordan from Ohio uttered childish exclamations, like, "Wow," or, "Whoa." He sounded like Ann Coulter, who does the same thing when she can't think of a good argument.
The Republicans were no poster children for education, Gail. Their mechanical, stuttering presentations reminded me of the not-so-great Jim Jones of the nefarious People's Temple. Republicans have drunk the trump Kool-Aid.
And the Republicans sounded just like those people around Kim Jong-un. Maybe they know what's going down when their leader trump returns.
283
@Charles: I love your comment. The comparison to Strother Martin is so spot-on it made me laugh out loud.
Speaking of Democrats being the adults in the room, special kudos should go to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She did something remarkable--elicited new information and new sources of information from Cohen. Her questioning was incisive, with not a hint of the grandstanding lawmakers usually can't resist indulging in on such occasions.
73
I watched the hearings and I needed your humor to recover. These hearings are important and necessary. We have to keep working on building and maintaining a good government. One has to fight a reflexive cynical reaction to watching the behavior and statements of our elected Members of Congress. However, it has been helpful in framing my vote in the next election.
I am sure you realize with your base knowledge of U.S. political history that this is a great time to be a journalist.
You are the best.
95
He knows Trump for 30 years. The Republicans who defend Trump know him for 30 minutes. If I had to choose from two evils, in this case I’d take Cohen.
129
I remember that there was some controversy at the time that Lynne Patton was appointed to her HUD position. An event planner for the Trump children. Shows the utter contempt that Trump shows for the poor. But then we moved on to another outrage. Time to revisit that appointment. We can't let the sheer volume of outrageous actions distract us.
236
I should think his conviction for lying under oath would make him avoid further trouble and tell the truth.
He's no boy scout, but he was convincing.
275
@Rob S
Of course, Cohen also knows what Mueller has and understands that anything he says under oath will be compared by Mueller against the, by now voluminous, documentation.
Cohen has little to gain by lying--and a great deal to lose.
Compare his position to the Republican Congressmen, who have everything to lose by telling the truth, and nobody who will fact check them.
2
The president has done so many horrible, racist, demeaning, ignorant, insulting, offensive and illegal things that they all blend together and obscure each other. This is a new thing: someone so awful that the awfulness actually makes it hard to see how awful he is.
If Michael Cohen’s testimony is even ten percent true, the president is constructed entirely of crimes held together by lies. What’s amazing is that to protect the benefits they reap from this grim reaper, Republicans will rise to his defense. They’ll deflect and minimize and apologize and obfuscate.
But they’re obfuscating on thin ice. When he finally collapses in on himself, the president will leave a swirling vortex in the swamp that will pull in his most ardent supporters.
Even if the president disappears in a puff of swamp gas, his voters are going to cry foul. They’re still out there, ready to vote for the next idiot who flatters their shortcomings and appeals to their vanities.
This excuse for a man ran for president as a publicity stunt. He’s as surprised as a dog would be if was chasing a car and caught it. Nobody expected this outcome—least of all him. He was a small-time hoodwinker who was selling mail-order meat and cheap Chinese ties, at least when he wasn’t defrauding students at his fake university.
So tell all, Mr. Cohen. Three years in the clink will give you time to write an exposé that will be a guaranteed best-seller.
1000
@gemli some of those ties weren't cheap , otherwise I agree with you.
24
I don't usually buy or read tell all books, but I would buy Michael Cohen's, when it comes out. And even read it. It'll be like reading The Godfather.
30
@gemli
"But they’re obfuscating on thin ice." Perfect!
37
I have come to accept that somewhere between 37-43 per cent of the country i.e. Trump supporters...either don't care about the facts or don't believe them. In addition, the GOP Senators and Congressmen/women care mostly about re-election and not the country. So all the testimony and discovery of Presidential wrong doing serves only to solidify the already extant opposition to Trump and probably take a few news cycles away from his grandstanding.
205
@daniel a friedman. I think it is 37 -43 percent of likely voters, not all Americans. I hope more people come out to vote. Growing the electorate is the way to go.
75
@daniel a friedman
They don't notice they're all dying of opioid overdoses. They don't notice they've received less than nothing as the result of the "greatest tax cut in history". They don't notice that their healthcare options are dwindling to extinction. They don't notice their blue-collar jobs are not coming back. Yeah, they're really sticking it to those northern liberals!
15
@daniel a friedman "Trump supporters...either don't care about the facts or don't believe them. "
Based on the Trump supporters I know, they don't care. The important fact for them is that a Democrat isn't in the White House.
8
I found it telling that, despite all the outrage that someone who had lied to Congress should even be testifying (one of the Republicans claimed it was completely unprecedented), no one mentioned the fact that Elliott Abrams, who was convicted of lying to congress in the Iran Contra affair, appeared before Congress just a week ago. In spite of having illegally withheld information from Congress, and supporting terrorist organizations in Central America, Republicans have welcomed him to serve in the GW Bush and, now. the Trump administration.
757
@Martin
When Abrams lied it was to Protect a Republican - that's not lying, that's 'politics'. Only when the lying goes contrary to the Republican story is it wrong.
Brings to mind the immoral - strike that- immortal words of Congressman Henry Hyde, "This is not about politics, this is about lying", in connection with his rabid pursuit of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Hyde was outraged about Clinton's dalliance with Monica; he neglected to mention his own lie to his wife about an affair he had engaged in. When the embarrassing truth came out Hyde dismissed it as a 'youthful indiscretion.'
52
@Martin
The standards are different for pro-republican liars.
If lying to Congress were a "real" crime that applied to all, the CEOs of most industries (cough, cough Pharmaceutical and Tobacco) called to testify would all be locked up.
41
@The Observer And who can forget Oliver North and John Mitchell before him?
28
Herbert Meyer, an intelligence official in the Reagan Administration, explains why none of this matters on the conservative website, American Thinker. "The Tea Party movement, driven by the belief "that character is more important than personality, that education isn't the same thing as judgment, and that expertise without common sense is dangerous," will spearhead the replacement of the existing governing Uber smart cohort with "a wholly new establishment." a folk of common sense just like us.
9
@Douglas Johnston if character and judgment and common sense are paramount, why are they supporting trump?
6
Well we see Trumps character. Is this the character they want?
2
@ Douglas Johnson: I didn’t understand a word of that statement, and I’m reasonably intelligent, educated and level headed. ~~???~~
4
“I talked to my beautiful wife back in Dripping Springs, Tex., just before the hearing. I said, ‘Don’t bother watching,’” said Representative Chip Roy.
I doubt he gave his Austin constituents a second thought. He doesn't have to, thanks to the gerrymander. Hopefully, the population density in Austin will increase sufficiently over the next two years to make Roy a one term wonder.
582
@NY->TX
The best part was when he said, with tears in his eyes, that he was elected not to waste his time with committee hearings but to balance the budget.
55
@NY->TX - In the mid-terms Texas Dems defeated every House GOP'er running for office in a district along I-35; with the evident panic on the bridge of the GOP'er Death Star which was on full display during Wednesday's hearing, Dems should re-double efforts to take back Cornyn's seat in 2020, aiming broadsides at Texas's Electoral College block of votes.
The GOPers' largest Electoral College block is vulnerable :)
59
@NY->TX
If my husband had said that to me, I would have made sure to watch anyway.
41
I loved the ending where the Republicans asked for numerous news articles to be added to the record; apparently they had nasty things to say about Cohen. On the one hand it is nice to see the Republicans are again asserting the veracity of the media, on the other hand I was very disappointed that the Democrats failed to ask for several more articles to be added by own Gail Collins: the Congressional Record is thereby diminished.
253
@Gerard If I remember correctly, most of the articles were from the Jeff Bezos' Washington Post or the "failing" New York Times. Don't recall hearing about any articles from Fox News.
4
@Gerard, funny you should say that. All the articles submitted were by the “fake news” at the N.Y. TIMES, Mother Jones, Slate, LA Times, Washington Post, etc. See a pattern? Very convenient for the the GOP to disparage the real news as “fake” until they need it to disparage Cohen. I wonder why they couldn’t use the conservative papers? Oh, that’s right, because none of them hold truth to power. None of them wrote truthful articles on Cohen when he was in the Groper’s pocket. Such hypocrites!
3
@Gerard. That dump of a bunch of random articles, tweets, instagrams by partisans who "disagreed" with Cohen was particularly childish and stupid. No one with an ounce of intelligence could be fooled by that nonsense. But then look at the audience it was aimed for. I go back and forth wishing on the one hand Democrats would have submitted stacks of papers as well, and on the other realizing that rolled eyes and disgust were probably the right response.
1
When our country faces a crisis such as Russia taking over Ukraine we will be at the mercy of how Trump sees the event. He could deny what all our intel agencies and military leaders conclude and say that Putin told him it was the right thing for them to do as they speak Russian. The GOP in congress will say oh well that's Trump being TRump we need more tax cuts and to ban abortions is our top priority.
117
Why would they defend him? He got elected anyway. The GOP understands one thing. They understand political power. They've decided to go through mud with this President for now. They gained 4 seats in the Senate at the midterms. They understand their constituents. They don't neccessarily like/don't like Trump but they hate/dislike, or are afraid, of the Democrats vision of America more. I not sure the Democrats have fully grasped that yet.
99
@Emperor of the North
Sure, Republicans gained a few Senate seats.
But they also dropped forty-one seats in the House, ending Republican leadership over the chamber and giving Democrats a 36-vote majority. In the popular vote Democratic candidates received nearly 10 million more votes than Republicans.
Maybe Democrats understand their constituents better than you think.
109
@Emperor of the North
The Senate map favored the Republicans in 2018; it will be kinder to the Democrats in 2020. Fingers crossed.
11
You have apparently missed the mid term election victory in the House by Republicans. Uh, that’s why that hearing, and many future hearings was held.
7
"Profiles in a Lack of Courage".
That's guaranteed to be the title of a history of the Republican Party in the Trump years.
We all know that if we replaced the name Trump with "Clinton" or "Obama" when it was used in today's testimony, the Republicans would be up in arms, calling for impeachment.
Instead, they just look the other way...
468
@MattNg Profiles in Duplicity. Credit where credit is due.
9
@MattNg The correct phrase is "Profiles in Jelly."
5
I also noticed that almost none of the Republican congress persons pushed back on any of Cohen's statements. They only attacked his character and bemoaned the spectacle at which they were grandstanding.
773
@Bob
The real job of everyone in Congress is to grandstand. That's why they're there. It's what they do all day long.
5
@Bob
There's an old saying in the legal profession the that goes something like this: When the facts are on your side, you argue the facts; when the Law is on your side, you argue the Law; but when neither the facts nor the Law is on your side, you scream, you bang the table and you tear-up your shirt.
I guess the Repubs know their old sayings...
35
@Bob
If the facts are against you, argue the law.
If the law is against you argue the facts.
If the law and the facts are against you pound on the table and shout.
4