At least Israel justice system is still working and that makes me hopeful.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and he was just indicted.
It took a long time but justice prevailed.
Being jewish, it was hard to see how corruption engulfed Israel and how it was no different than any other corrupt regime.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-indicted.html
4
If Republicans call Cohen a liar, do they have a word for Mr Trump? Is there a word in English language for 7800 lies in 2 years? Pathological liar doesn't cut it
8
Nicholas Kristof's references to Nixon were interesting. True, we're experiencing a "long national nightmare" – but although Nixon was awful, Trump is not Nixon. Compare and contrast:
Nixon was highly competent. He appointed competent (sometimes brilliant) subordinates. Trump is an incompetent Chief Executive, and has mostly appointed a raft of unsuitable subordinates.
Nixon respected and usually believed in federal government operations (when not subverting the Justice Department and FBI for his political purposes). His Administration created the EPA, for example. Trump and most of his minions disdain and dislike the federal government (DoD excepted); in many ways they've been undermining and tearing it down.
Nixon was an internationalist. Trump is basically a jingoistic "America Firster".
Nixon was not strongly ideologically motivated. He even modified his anticommunist stance to create a strategic "opening" to China; he tried out wage and price controls to deal with inflation. Trump may not be much of an ideologue, but he's consorted with and brought many right-wing ideologues into his Administration.
Nixon was strongly (perhaps pathologically) motivated by power, but not obviously by prospect of financial gain. Trump is driven by both power and financial gain.
Both Nixon and Trump were bigots: Nixon was an antisemite; Trump is a racist.
Both were liars.
Nixon had almost no political charisma. Trump is charismatic to many Americans.
Choose your poison.
7
LOL, Trump wants the Nobel Peace prize?
I think it's time for the Nobel institute to create a "Hall of Shame Prize" complete with a 50 cents award to the winner.
They have enough contenders on this planet to give out this prize for the next 50 years---from Saudi Arabian princes & other fearless dictators & other dangerous charlatans.
6
Nixon wasn't "bad" in the sense that Trump is bad.
Nixon was simply a paranoid personality; the product of having been rejected so frequently in his life. First by cold and domineering parents, then by individuals he met during his school years who ostracized him to the point he formed his own social groups. Accordingly, he had difficulty trusting anyone, and he would frequently strike out at perceived enemies.
Trump, on the other hand, is a first class degenerate thug who, if given the choice, would prefer the role of Mafia Don to the Presidency of the United States. He is clearly narcissistic, and egotistical to the point that no other opinions matter to him, as he is so clueless that he thinks only he has the answers.
Unfortunately for us, every day he demonstrates that he has neither the intelligence, nor the political savvy, to be the president.
This nightmare can't end soon enough . . .
11
Those slaves to the Trump cult of personality do not care how many crimes he has committed. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex with an intern. Trump has lied about paying off a prostitute -- and a thousand other things. But the true believers don't care. He is a scoundrel -- but he is their scoundrel.
65
Cohen's Republican interrogators derided him as a liar. But when Cohen lied to Congress, he did so for the benefit of the leader of the Republican party, Trump, and I didn't hear Trump speak up and correct the lie. That makes him complicit in the lie to Congress. And yet these Republican interrogators act as Trump's fixer, condemning Cohen instead of Trump. So, yes, they are doing the same thing that Cohen did for 10 years, except that, in my view, they are infinitely worse than Cohen because they are members of Congress.
10
I thought Elijah Cummings was wonderful! A moral and wisdom man. Thank you God for this man!
11
For those who want to get rid of Trump, we need to keep our eye on the prize. Apparent crimes, roguish schemes, and Republican intransigence are all part of the side show. And so was Cohen's testimony. If he alleged an "atmosphere" as did Dean, well bully for him.
Readers are wallowing in allegations when we need proof. Reporters are telling us why they are personally outraged. Their standard of proof is moral, not rational. The "atmosphere" is poisonous but there is no knockout blow.
Democrats are stirred up to the extreme. But they lack the smoking gun. Talk of "apparent" crimes doesn't do it for me. I want Trump gone, and Mr. Kristof's moral outrage doesn't help the cause.
2
Excellent column, Mr. Kristof. Those who say there was nothing new in Cohen's testimony are blind to the truth, which is a sin.
Mr. Kristof, you make an excellent point when you write: ``The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar. But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump?''
I had to laugh about the sign that arrogant Republican Florida congressman put behind him about Cohen: ``Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.'' Yeah, right. If you can't see that the Conman in Chief is an incessant liar, something is wrong. Believe me, the truth will win out in the end and Trump will end up on the ash heap of history like all tyrants.
7
Redemption and forgiveness are Christian values and as important and central as they are, so is justice. Michael Cohen is a bad man and a liar and he is now seeking redemption. Not so with his Republican interrogators. They are intent on re-trying him for crimes for which he has already been convicted, while ignoring the far more significant crimes of his "mob boss" for which he is yet to be indicted and convicted.
4
“I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.” He added: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
And I hope they all get what's coming to them.
6
Republicans are not following Trump blindly. They knew what he was before they voted for him, but voted for him anyhow. They are following him with their eyes wide open. They are traitors to our country.
15
The only thing the Republicans in the Oversight Committee could do to defend the Liar in Chief was to keep saying over and over again that Cohen is a convicted liar. The only difference between Trump and Cohen is that, at least for now, Trump has not been convicted of anything.
Cohen's most important point during the hearing was to warn Republicans that they, too, will end up suffering if they continue to protect Trump.
2
Even if Mr. Cohen had not revealed a single piece of information not already known to the public, his testimony was important. It has the ring of truth. Cohen has nothing to gain now that he has been sentenced. He has everything to lose by lying to Congress again.
Cohen's statement that he suspects Mr. Trump of conspiracy with the Russians is bigger than it may seem. Cohen was privy to all sorts of information about Trump and his doings.
It's also significant that Trump paid Cohen back for the hush money given to Ms. Clifford in installments over a year, yet he expected Cohen to pull together the money immediately from his own funds. Why is no one in the press asking why that would be? How could a self-proclaimed billionaire not be able to pull together $300,000 quickly?
1
Well said Mr. Kristof. I thought Cohen did a masterful job of his day-long testimony yesterday. The most shocking thing about all of this - as many knew exactly what Trump was before he became President - was the quick and complete capitulation of the Republican Party. I do not see how the GOP can continue to exist after Trump is finally removed from the White House, given their craven obedience to his epic level of corruption and nepotism. Hopefully the rule of law will move a bit more quickly in the near term future.
4
I have stopped listening to any of this. Until something happens...nothing happens. The Republicans are not going to budge and the democrats don't have the votes. So unless the 67% finally rise up and shut down the country for a day or two in solidarity to end this abomination (and thats not going to happen either)... nothing will continue to happen.
6
Cohen's testimony will soon be rendered irrelevant. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, and North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows have asked the Justice Dept to investigate Cohen, on the grounds that they have evidence he perjured himself during the hearing with the oversight committee.
With that simple act, the GOP has guaranteed complete support from Trump loyalists and thereby won the war on Cohen's credibility in that camp.
The rest of us will have to deal with whatever evidence the GOP claims it has, since it will certainly "find" whatever it needs to discredit Cohen. We may not buy these discoveries, but enough of the gullible swing voters - as evidenced by Trump's 2016 election - will be easily fooled again.
Of course, Cohen could appeal any resulting convictions for perjury, all the way to the Supreme Court, right? Right.
Trump uber alles.
@Ben Alcobra
That charge sounds like a desperate hail Mary pass from the worst of the GOP's Congressional representatives. It sounded like Cohen was careful yesterday; hard to believe that he made a mistake and committed perjury. So far the judiciary have been resilient to Trump's total corruption, so it seems most doubtful that a false "Cohen-perjury" case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
@Ben Alcobra Cohen's attorney's would not have allowed him to perjure himself--Jordan and Meadows were just grasping at straws--they were trying their darned best to distract and deflect--as usual--to no avail. Jordan still has the Ohio wrestling issue on his back and Meadows has the NRA--Russia debacle to deal with. They may have just as much if not more "troubles" than Cohen.
I remember a customer telling me about Trump after his tower was built in Chicago some years ago.
'He cheats', she said.
She worked for a company that contracted with Trump.
Trump Enterprises had signed a contract that detailed the job, the materials and the labor cost.
After the work had been done, Trump bulked at the price telling her boss that he had charged too much and he wanted the price lowered.
When her boss challenge Trump with the signed contract, he countered with a take me to court.
It seems that Trump had a pattern.
A court date would be set and his lawyers would either not show or ask for a later court date, and sometimes that could go on for months if not years.
Or another one, he would have other companies working under his banner and would say that it's not Trump Enterprises you were working for but one of the other companies, so you have to sue them, not Trump Enterprises even though that's who the contract was underwritten.
Her boss had planned on using the money as seed money for other projects and to pay his employees.
The boss, having a payroll to meet, settled, losing a lot of money.
They got paid, but other projects had to be put on hold and her boss, therefore, had to lay off people.
She was one of the ones laid off.
Trump cheats, and he lies big time.
His entire campaign was a lie.
But people fell for it.
And yes Trump is a con man.
The first law of a con is to know your mark.
14
Key quote to the whole tragedy the nation, Trump and his family are going through and will go through: “He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Cohen said. “Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history.’ He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election.” Yet he won the general election. Most Amerians voted for him knowing he was a no-holds-barred business wheeler-dealer. Why? Because elite America--symbolized by Hillary Clinton--was so out of touch with ordinary citizens needs and concerns. (Remember the front-page battles over trans-gender bathrooms: no more!)
2
---Bravo, Nick.
As to your hope that the..."Democrats aren’t gleeful"...while it's true that it's a sad moment in the history of our country, if it in any way moves things in the direction of this nightmare being closer to ending...glee is absolutely called for, in my mind. trump is the worst stain our Republic has had to endure in many years, and certainly the most crooked, undeserving presidency of our lifetimes. Anything that might signal a move toward his departure is cause to celebrate.
I've got a special bottle put aside for the moment when...he is no more.
3
Could it be that Donald Trump holds the nation and our government is such contempt that he would use a presidential election as a promotional device for his sagging brand?
He didn't expect to win. He didn't have to be polite or pay attention or learn anything at all about the job he sought. His goal was publicity.
That grandstanding is what makes his presidency the worst in history. He isn't there to do good. He's there by mistake.
1
The Republican Party has become an extension of the Trump organization and are strenuously working with Trump to cover up the truth. What jumped out at me during the hearings were the many trails leading to financial fraud and greed. If what Cohen said is true there will be documentary evidence of fraudulent loan applications and other false documents used by Trump and his organization to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Indeed it appears from what Cohen has said that the Southern District of NY is following those trails. When that evidence is made public it will be another explosion. How will the GOP defend Trump then? At some point they will have to abandon Trump or become part of the criminal network headed by a rogue President of the United States.
3
One quibble with word choice:
“Now, watching Michael Cohen testify before Congress, I sense a similar historic temblor, only this time it may be the No. 1-most-corrupt administration that is beginning to teeter.”
Seriously, Mr. Kristof, “may be”?
2
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.
4
The Republicans on the committee behaved exactly as we expected: bullies, sycophants, and mirror images of the Keystone Cops...only mean-spirited. Sadly, their unwavering, soulless commitment to this president and their party made for little more than a mockery of the hearing. Even sadder, their base loves it.
3
Progressives and Democrats must come together now and be the Party to win back the White House.
May I suggest Climate Change as their first priority.
The young voters will be there for Climate Science.
Stop acting like you are 2 parties
We must be united in our campaign to remove Trump and his posse of non believers from control.
2
One thing that didn’t get a lot of press from the Cohen hearings yesterday was the revelation that Trump delighted in stiffing small contractors. To me, this is not merely a deep character flaw (which certainly it is). Instead, this is a failure to recognize the engine of the US economy. It is a disregard for what makes America what it is. It should be as offensive as having a communist running our country (which I'm sure that some Republicans would find deeply offensive), because it is, at its heart, a failure to recognize what we’re all about.
Anyone who takes pleasure in stiffing small businesses has no business being in any kind of leadership role in our country. Never mind being a liar, a cheat, a con artist, a racist, or not being very bright. This guy doesn’t even know what America about.
4
Everyone in the media and press must take this to hear: "Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the 'greatest infomercial in political history.'”
YOU enabled that. YOU gave him the free exposure and helped put him in the White House. You must do better than this. Elections are not entertainment or horse races; they are the lifeblood of any democracy, including ours. If you're not covering them seriously, with independent analysis, you're just another cog in a propaganda or marketing machine. Your talking heads, pundits, sensational "news" cycles, and lazy focus on trivia have created and enabled the worst and most dangerous President in American history. Shame on you.
6
Why waste time analyzing Trump. He is a thug, period. As far as the Republicans are concerned they are just protecting their turf, like all Crime families. It’s time for a RICO investigation with all Republicans serving in the Congress to be investigated for covering for Trump and his illegal actions and voting for the most corrupt Cabinet ever
6
American presidents have done much worse than simply "bamboozle or spin us reporters." Trump may be the worst of the worst, but don't give us this malarkey about truth and American values placing us on some kind of pedestal. Since World War II we have more blood on our hands than any other country, and every single president -- every single one -- has done something that would have gotten him convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg. "Tethered to the truth"? You've got to be joking.
True. Nixon was a right wing dirty tricks politician but he was still a standard politician. He served in the Navy on a warship in WWII and was a career public servant and an acknowledged expert at national politics. He was friend of JFK during their Senate years and he started the EPA and opened China. He was a strange unlikeable guy with a diagnosable level of paranoia but no one ever questioned his patriotism, his personal honesty, or his love of country. Just his sanity and his weird conservative vibe.
Trump is a draft dodging, real estate gangster who hates his country and who has broken every law in the book. He is a friend of mobsters all over the world and has probably never conducted an honest business deal in his life. He has morphed into an agent of a hostile foreign power who engineered his electoral win by attacking this country with a simultaneous cyber and social media attack to rig an election. Russia exploited the weakness of the then current President, Obama, to get inside the electoral system and plant who knows how many cyber bombs waiting to go off every four years knowing that if he was successful his puppet president would protect him and that if he was caught Obama would do nothing about it. For the first time in history the protections of the constitution have broken down and the worst case scenario has happened: a foreign agent has assumed electoral control of the executive branch and is now running the government for the good of a foreign power.
The tone of this piece surprises me. It's written as if Cohen revealed some deeply guarded secrets yesterday. In fact, very little that he testified to was new and anyone who gleaned fresh insight into Trump's character yesterday either hasn't been paying attention or was engaging in a heroic effort of willful ignorance.
41
@Sneeral---Cohen related instances of first-hand knowledge of what had previously only been suspected of trump, regarding both material matters, and of trump's character. This takes it to a new level, and certainly gives more credence to the previous suspicions, as well as helping re-focus some of the energy from the Russia-related stuff that is Mr. Mueller's purview, to the financial workings and misdeeds of trumps...essentially, criminal empire.
29
@Sneeral
But it does not make it less significant
12
@scratchy You have explained perfectly why Cohen’s testimony was important.Thanks for explaining things to Sneerai. Yes, we knew this all along but Cohen validated our strong suspicions.
15
I'm a Dem and I'm not gleeful. This political saga has been exhausting from the time when Trump came down the escalator and revealed what kind of inhumane person he is in that awful speech.
It's a relief that what we've always suspected about Trump is out in the open but discouraging to watch Republicans have crazy fits while in denial yesterday. Trump would throw each of them under a bus if his political life depended on it.
Trump Blind Loyalty was an imaginary sign over each of their Republican heads yesterday. Sirens were going off...and they couldn't see what they sounded like but it was embarrassing for the country.
How come the defensive Republicans can't comprehend how Trump affected Cohen's life all those years, when it's obvious Trump has affected theirs by their behavior yesterday. They're all in the...Trump Fan Club.
It should scare the voters that the Republicans refuse to accept that Trump has and does some very corrupt things in his life to get wealthy or to be admired. Trump is not a strongman, he's an insecure man who believes manipulating and cheating is the way to get ahead in life.
More unveiling of Trump's saga to come unfortunately and 2 more years of his lies as he tries to hold on to the WH.
Partisan Republicans who spent years concocting outlandish fantasies about the Clintons and Obamas are now convinced democrats are just doing the same thing to Trump.
They truly have lost touch with reality unfolding in plain sight thanks to the right wing media bubble they live in.
1
Nixon was trying to subvert democracy. Trump is not. He may have cut corners with campaign finance and other laws but this is not material. There little evidence of collusion with Russia so far and it is hard to even imagine a conspiracy which would. somehow, have illegitimately given Trump the election. Anything material would have come out already. Mueller's report (if it ever gets done) will unearth more leads to technical but insubstantial legal violations and this pointless process will then run on for even longer in public.
Democrats who crave impeachment should reflect that politics is turning into a game of hounding anyone who puts even a toe across any legal line or engages in any other form of misconduct, past or present. The Republicans can do this also; they already started with Bill Clinton.
This is not to defend Trump. He is a sleazeball and an incompetent. But everybody knew this when he ran. The way to deal with him is political, not legal. The point is not to have a trial, or a whole series of trials. It is to win in 2020.
2
Why all the shock and awe? The president comes from a world where anything you can get away with is fine, and it's worked great so far. But becoming president threatens to expose the whole thing, Darn.
And by the way, if Nixon had Fox News, the Republicans would have stood by him, no amount of facts would have had any effect.
2
The Republicans on the Oversight Committee spent all day castigating the witness, Micheal Cohen, for being a convicted liar, convicted for saying the very same things as their President still says. In what world is that logically consistent?
I am not gleeful, because this whole mess is very tragic for our country. But I am fascinated in a perverse way that in spite of all Trump's despicable behavior, all the obvious signs of wrong-doing, and the wealth of tell-alls from his close associates-- that so many members of congress continue to publicly support him. What can they possibly think their loyalty is going to get them? Especially after yesterday, when they were explicitly warned by a man who is paying the ultimate price. crazy.
2
Dear Mr. Kristof
You have always been a first class reporter. What we need from you now is answers to questions that nobody seems to be asking. You need to go to Ohio, Indiana, Kansas and ask Trump voters why they voted for Trump and why they are going to vote for him again. The problem is that 99 percent of the reporting on Trump, rather than the people who support him. They will tell you why they voted for Trump and they have their reasons....not that anybody is asking. And that's the problem.
5
@Lonnie
Mr. Kristof doesn't care why people voted for Trump. in the liberal media echo-chamber there is no space for other voices. So, when someone like Trump (an outsider they did not endorse) gets elected, they throw a 4-year long hissy fit. Everybody remembers their faces on election night. They were ready for celebration and ended up almost in tears. Truly an astonishing sight for the "free" press to exhibit. They lost all credibility as neutral and fair discriminators of news and opinion.
Personally, I wouldn't mind more of the same for them, because they are so arrogant.
1
I don’t think Democrats are gleeful...merely hopeful that some action can be taken to stop this Trump and GOP trainwreck before our nation is wounded beyond recovery.
To me, one of the most disheartening aspects of the oversight committe’s performance today was not the verification of things we already suspected. Rather it was the fiendish and ferocious attack on Cohen by the GOP members of the committee. Yes, Cohen is, even by his own admission a liar. However how many criminal witnesses have been sworn at trials involving life or death penalties and been the turning point in a jury’s decision? When you are dealing with a criminal of Trump’s caliber, EVERYONE who was in his inner circle is a liar!
But Cohen’s morality was not the issue today and he was not on trial. He was there to substantiate information about his relationship with Trump and Trump’s organization and election. Considering that Cohen has been known to have a short fuse, I was amazed his head didn’t explode under their attacks. Leads me to believe that he truly is ready to get the monkey of his past off his back and is being truthful.
124
"But the sum total of his testimony was devastating; decades from now, historians will continue to analyze it."
Baloney. Days from now Michael Cohen will be forgotten. If it takes that long. Yesterday was a shameful political spectacle on both sides. But in the long run, and even in the short, it means nothing.
5
Even more probing and specific questions should have been asked of Cohen. They weren't Let me outline what I think should be asked now.
First, let's posit the best case scenario for team Trump, their actual position, to the extent that one can be stitched together from the various meanderings of Trump's own legal Nosferatu, Giuliani.
The money was fronted by Cohen, apparantly on his own initiative, wirhout Trump's initial knowledge, and not to influence the election, but only to protect Trump and his wife from a lying extortionist. A mundane occurrence for wealthy clients, says Rudy. Next, Trump, hearing of this mundane "I picked up your cleaning " kind of expenditure, pays him back with his own money, either personal checks, or from his wholly owned business, or both. That's all risibly non credible, but assume it.
Now, the question becomes, how were the 11 35k checks to Cohen accounted for by the Trump CFO? Loan repayments, legal services, salary gift, what? Only the CFO can answer, and there will be an objective, unshadable answer, in the company records. Unless 130k of it was accounted as loan repayment, Trump is in trouble that he can't lie his way out of.
1
As much as I abhor Trump, impeachment is not the answer. For starters, the likelihood that the Republican-controlled Senate would convict him is near zero. So we'd wind up with an acquittal, the perfect outcome for the GOP and Trump supporters. Even if enough Republicans could be convinced to convict him in the Senate, we'd wind up with Pence as president. That would quickly lead to a pardon for Trump and his co-conspirators. Not the outcome I'd like to see.
With control of the House, several things will change. First, Trump will be kept off balance and on the defensive by a continuous stream of investigations that will be fruitful. This will damage Trump, and, more importantly, it will tarnish the GOP, perhaps irretrievably. Second, Trump's legislative agenda will come to a screeching halt. The House puts together the budget and controls the purse strings. Trump can forget about his pet projects that will only benefit the upper crust. Third, control of the House will also allow the passage of bills that are supported by the electorate but not the GOP, forcing them to refuse to vote for popular ideas. Not a good thing when they're facing many contested Senate seats in 2020.
Revenge may be sweet, and it's tempting to go for the easy win, but now is the time to think strategically. Removal of Trump from office carries political risks that might backfire. The surest, safest way to rid ourselves of this cancer is to defeat Donald J. Trump and his enablers soundly in 2020.
5
Your comparison of Nixon and Trump is interesting, although I do not agree with it. Trump has nothing like the accomplishments of Nixon, who was a brilliant politician and statesman before his self-inflicted downfall and a respected and intelligent commentor afterwards. Trump may yet demonstrate some Nixonian ability, but I doubt it.
4
We know the KKK endorsed Trump because they understand that he clearly endorses their principles.
We can trust the KKK to know their own principles and Trump is one with them.
4
We knew all this, sounds like sour grapes, Cohen going to prison ,convicted felon ,disbarred lawyer , so was former President Bill Clinton disbarred when he was impeached.
So the question I keep saying over and over, how bad of a candidate do you have to be to lose to Trump, I’m talking to you Hillary.
You took the questions from Donna Brazile head of the DNC , who was later fired from CNN.
This was a presidential debate. It showed me as a voter you had no integrity.
The last few days remaining in the election and your hanging out in Hollywood for a fund raiser, while Trump was campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin.
You took the election for granted.
Everyday the MSM tries to annihilate Trump everyday
24/7. Trump had proven over and over how resilient he is, Put a great candidate out there this time and give the voters a reason to vote for a Democrat.
4
Con man, racist, cheater, liar -- all these we know. But what about cult leader? Trump mesmerizes, hypnotizes, and brainwashes people. The cultish behavior of his followers is obvious because no matter what, they will follow. Even if that means right over the cliff. You and I -- we are not that. We did not drink the Kool aid, a reference to those who followed a cult leader into committing suicide. But we will watch the suicide happen. Indeed we are watching it. I agree, tragic all around. America grieves.
3
It was good to get to know Jim Jordan and the rest of his spineless, amoral GOP cronies through this hearing.
Their greed and servile obedience to a crook and traitor will be noted as this ship of fools sinks to the bottom of Donald's swamp.
6
NYT should republish the fifth and sixth paragraphs of this opinion each day as an ongoing headline, with additions as appropriate. The nation needs to be reminded of the enormity of trump's corruption until the stables of government have been cleansed of all traces of his stench.
3
John Dean's wife looks great in the picture. The Republicans
love having Tony Soprano as President. He runs them as
a crime family. Total subservience and they give him everything he wants.
2
The damage is already done. Trump will be made martyr by his devotees and more powerful if impeached and/or jailed.
Having voted in as president a man who won his presidential election by adopting Hitler's 1935 campaign slogan of "Make Germany Great Again" America has now backed itself into a deep dark corner. I truly love my country and wish it were different, but I see nothing, on the Democratic, Progressive or Republican agenda proffering the kind of deep cultural reform our culture/country needs to change that any time soon.
1
No impeachment. Trump is a lying crook; Pence is truly dangerous. Never Pence.
4
A racist, con-man, and cheat, oh my! Trump is a character of fiction come to life, threatening the world order. All of those sycophantic GOP Congressmen are destined to follow Cohen (to an enlightenment and maybe prison), some day far in the future no doubt.
But who on Earth voted for Jim Jordan? That guy is a rabid dog and I'm not sure whether he can ever be brought into the light - too many blows to the head and wrestling grips that cut off blood circulation to his brain. That man is an embarrassment to Ohio.
5
Yes he is a racist, con man and cheat, but he is giving us lower taxes, anti-abortion judges and keeping immigrants out. So who cares.
Sigh. Is that what we've come to.
1
L LOVED when the Republicans kept bleating that "AMerican's have better things to do than listen to Mr. Cohen's lies....
I guess that's why it was broadcast on EVERY network yesterday, it was all they could talk about last night on the news shows, and I would bet ...best.ratings.ever.
You can fool some of the people some of the time (Trump supporters come to mind) but sheeeesh...how much more do you need to hear or see?
And can some reporter PLEASE ask Giuliani why HE used rats and snitches when he brought down the Mafia in the 1990s if "no one ever listens to liars with no credibility"?
5
It is refreshing to hear articulated what many of us know and suspect of Trump. He is a liar, a cheat, and totally unfit for any public office. NY residents rushed to have his name removed from their buildings; he is a tainted, spoiled piece of meat.
2
After a few months as President--most people figured out already that he was a racist, con man and cheat--also a bully--to say the least.
3
"He Is a Racist, He Is a Con Man, and He Is a Cheat."
Not quite onomatopoeic.
Nor carousingly-cadenced.
Consider:
Each of US is a racist.
Each of US remains wilfully conned;
passively as well as actively.
Each of US enables norms, values and
menschlichkeit to be cheated!
Daily.
All around.
Mr. Trump learned his ‘skills’ from his father, and more importantly, from Roy Cohn. One wonders: when fighting someone dirty, do you refuse to use their methods? Or do you engage another gunslinger of the same ilk? Where is the mongoose to counter the Trumpian nest of vipers? Cohen is but one; surely there are others...
1
If Michael Cohen is to serve three years for lying to Congress, how many years should Trump get for all of his lies?
4
“The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed."
"I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self."
"You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.”
― John Fowles, The Magus
5
Cohen is going to jail for lying to Congress. His lie was that POTUS wasn't a criminal.
2
Um. Nope. I am gleeful.
1
After the gray clouds of this administration blow away, it's only blue skies ahead.
I'm looking forward to a new day, a new year, a new President, and an honest to God leader.
3
Con Cohen will state any lies to save his hide. He wants to reduce his jail time and will create any lie to achieve this goal. He is a liar and once a liar always a liar. Most of us are not buying what Cohen is selling. He will be residing in a cell very soon but not soon enough.
Trump is a cancer on our national soul.
Clearly, he doesn't represent our better selves. In fact, quite the opposite. He is too selfish and temperamental to see the forest above the trees.
He is using the presidency not as a means for the "greater good" but as a way of enhancing his own wealth and privilege.
He is too selfish and mean-spirited to recognize the essential value of a true democracy and is incapable of uniting our country for the common good.
Finally, one can only conclude that the last place that Trump should be is in the people's White House. He has done more damage in his first two years to our reputation around the world and to our Founders' vision of a free and open democracy -- a beacon of light and hope to the rest of the world.
Let the impeachment hearings begin! After all, without Russia's inexcusable interference in our election process, Trump wouldn't have been elected.
He's a liar and a cheat and doesn't belong anywhere near the levers of power!
3
Michael Cohen minds me of Murphy's Law:
"If anything can go wrong, it will!"
Trump seems to be the ultimate, wrong US president!
But perhaps, we the American people are ready to turn our
democracy around, so that we will not have any more Trumps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty seven years ago, Leonard Cohen sang: "Democracy":
"Democracy is coming... to the USA". Here is a Trump version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ythb4PSWBIA&t=221s
Perhaps Leonard Cohen was prophetic about our future.
Ironically, he passed away, one day after Trump was elected!
I hope that a new Trumpless "democracy is coming to the USA.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2
Uuum, and all this unsubstantiated testimony before Congress is coming from someone who'd previously lied...to Congress;
hahahahahaha
1
Sorry Cohen is not sympathetic, just pathetic.
Recording private privileged client attorney conversations? Not walking away when he could have? Claiming he’d take a bullet and then rollover and compose like this ?
I’m blown away how quickly the Dems have gone from despising him in the not to distant past to fawning over every word he says as if it’s gospel.
This is an ugly chapter all around.
3
Once a thug, always a thug. No honor among thieves.
"I don't care."
That's the problem. Trump is Trump and they don't care. Not about what he says (lies) does (cheats) or thinks (nothing intelligent). They do not care that he is a womanizer, a white supremacist, a narcissistic egomaniac and a fraud. They do not care that he likes Un, Putin, and Duarte, or that he said Obama was born in Kenya. They don't care that he has zero class, no cultural sophistication, isn't the least bit "christian" and never sets foot in church (even though he is always free to shoot a few rounds of gold) and has no comprehension of anything beyond the end of his long, droopy tie. They do not care.
That most Americans are that easily duped, brainwashed, mislead and clueless, that they are easily manipulated and simply cannot tell what is real from what is false, is a testament to the diminished quality of public education and the increasing cost of college over the last 50 years. The icing on the cake is Mrs. DeVos, who seeks to kill what is left of public education.
Citizens United was a horrible decision and responsible for the outright purchase of the GOP by extreme libertarian and evangelical types.
Cohen's testimony will do little to change these people. They will see Cohen as the villain and leave Emperor Trump on his gilded throne. We have two more years to go and if Mueller hasn't got a smoking gun to get rid of Trump, expect things to get much worse for at least two more years.
1
Trump is incompetent as President, a danger to the country now and in the future. That is why he needs to go. That he is an immoral racist who essentially runs a criminal mob and has turned the GOP into just such a racist criminal mob. The Founders did not anticipate this GOP but RICO does address it. Perhaps outside forces can address it. The GOP will not clean its own house, ever.
2
Trump’s SAT scores:
Math 460
English. 390
Total. 850
Slightly better than moronic
The Donald summed it some time ago with the line “where is my Roy Cohn?” The mob is his framework. It’s worked pretty well so far.
Fortunately - LAWS DO NOT APPLY TO REPUBLICANS.
Only to everyone else.
Watching Republicans indignantly call out Cohan for "lying" was enough to make anyone with any sense want to puke their guts out.
The fact is, I haven't seen a Republican tell the truth one single time since 1980.
What a bunch of unrepentant sleazebags.
4
The republicans made fools of themselves today, screaming and badgering Cohen....Many will be voted out because of these antics. Extreme republicans must realize most of the US is not as uninformed and low-information and as brainwashed as trump supporters....We see right through you and trump and your lies!
1
The entire nation knows that Trump is corrupt, a liar, a cheat, a racist, a misogynist, and a thief. But half of our electorates doesn't care. That scares me much more than Trump.
1
The people Trump appeals to believe it's all a cheat. Everyone is dishonest; at least Trump is open about his dishonesty, his misogyny and even about his racism. America is infected with a kind of "je m'en foutism" (I don't give a damnism). For supporters of Trump, the fact he is a liar and a cheat is not news. It's a feature not a bug. They feel constantly attacked as racists, as misogynists, as homophobes They're sick of it. Trump's their man
1
Another lying creep who is now trying to make a living off of Trump. He bit off a piece of the apple and choked on it. Now his only hope is to digorge himself for future books, movies, etc. Lost his Law license. Lies pour out of his mouth like water out of a faucet. They say Rats do not do well in prison.
2
The one thing that Cohen's testimony does is raise the likelihood that the Special Prosecutor's (SP) report will be very unfavorable for the President. What Cohen said yesterday, he has already told the SP and PLUS more. Then there are testimonies from other persons. Thus, the SP report will most likely be even more damaging.
1
I lived through Watergate as a 21 year old college student. We sat day after day in front a black and white TV set, with grainy picture watching one witness after another testify. We were riveted to our seats. Burglary, hush money, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, tape recordings, shady characters, and repeated denials come to mind. But, also I remember the day it all fell apart. I was in a department store in Eugene Oregon and we were watching Alexander Butterfield describe Nixon's secret tape recording system in the television department. Heart stopping stuff. No one moved for over an hour. And then, days later, it was over. Nixon resigned. And our recovery began. Trump's crimes, since before taking office and after , when seen through the lens of Watergate pale in comparison and are far worse. We must exert our collective good sense and remove him from office.
3
Even though you just realized who the “real” Trump is I can assure you the voters knew the truth before they pulled the lever to vote for him. Most will vote for him again. Why? Because they love their children and fellow citizens more than the billions of people in other countries. No matter that among the other billions there are some who would work harder for less or start more businesses or are just plain more pitiful than one’s own fellow citizens. The backsliding Americans have experienced for DECADES has caused them to vote THEIR interests even while being called selfish, rascist and deplorable!
1
Regarding whether Trump is a racist.
Shortly before the 2016 election, I was at a New Yorker form where David Letterman was interviewed and was asked about Trump whom he had frequently had on his show.
He recalled speaking with Trump after there was an accusation a few years ago that Trump was a racist and Trump asked him if he believed he was. Letterman said at the time he said no but by the time of the event he said he had changed his mind and that he considered Trump to be a racist.
1
The corruption of power is astonishing. To think voters will actually reelect many of these people.
127
@Heidi Agreed. If I hear one more time about the how great the stock market is doing, it will be too much. The ends don't justify the means. The truth is, people are unable to admit when they've made a mistake and dig in even harder. Also, people are much more selfish than we realized. Country before party or even person is no where to be seen.
16
@Heidi
All these POLS have to do is talk racist or talk down to people of other religions or ethnicity.
It's been the trick used many times before.
7
It is altogether fitting that Congress has to clean up a mess when, through their inaction on issues such as immigration, they created the need for Presidents to rule by fiat.
This reminds me somewhat of the Wells Fargo debacle. Clearly bad stuff happened. Folks got fired. Reputations got tarnished. Like trump, the folks at the top were defended. Nice work if you can get it.
1
Brilliant:
"The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar. But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump? After all, Trump has made 8,718 false or misleading statements since taking office, according to The Washington Post’s count."
3
Republicans don't care about the truth. This hearing never would have happened had they retained control of the house. They care about only one thing-judges. They will overlook trump's reprehensible behavior so they can fill the courts with young, conservative right-wingers.
2
Always remember and repeat these words when thinking anything at all about the Cohen stage production;
"Uncorroborated hearsay from an unreliable source"
Michael Cohen's testimony revealed the source of President Donald Trump's obsession with MS-13: gang rivalry.
For republicans, it all boils down to this. Trump is rich and he has power so he must be idolized and believed. Their lust for power or even to be close to it is addicting to them, and they'll do whatever it takes to be in "their masters good grace". Truth, justice and the American way is for losers, money and power is their "mothers milk" and if that means shilling for trump, then so be it. They want their "little piece of the action".
2
Trump surely must be a master manipulator. He didn't expect to win the primary nor the election yet he somehow convinced enough Americans to vote for him. This is, to me, the most disturbing aspect of the whole affair. Just how could (can) so many be so gullible. Or maybe they were simply desperate.
I remain dismayed at the state of our nation.
1
I too was 14 years old during the Watergate hearings but unlike Mr. Kristof I think those hearings will only serve to strengthen Mr. Trump's support among Republicans in this country.
Mr. Kristoff was probably watching CNN or MSNBC but what he and others don't seem to understand is that Trump supporters don't watch those networks. They watch Fox news and Fox news said that Mr. Cohen was a liar and the liberal media like CNN and MSNBC were trying to bring down Mr. Trump who everyone should know is an honest decent man just trying to make America Great Again.
So who are you going to believe? Your own eyes and ears or Fox news?
1
Since Mr. Kristof compares Michael Cohen to John Dean, maybe he should have pointed out the big difference between them. Unlike Cohen, Dean was never convicted of lying to Congress.
If Republicans had ever called a proven liar to testify against a Democratic President, Nicholas Kristof would have been among the first to cry foul.
1
"The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar. But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump?"
Bingo. Not to mention that Trump hired Cohen and employed him for 10 years.
1
I was a student in the north of Britain as news of the Watergate burglary broke, and I recall one news headline that is sadly pertinent today:
AMERICANS CANNOT BE SHOCKED ANYMORE
The British were aghast at how little attention Americans paid to the corruption that was evident at the highest level of government, and that is small fry compared with the corruption evident today.
1
Dream on. Resistance loses again.
Trump has been a known quantity for a long time. Yesterday just confirms what is known about trump. The real expose in the hearing is the utter hypocrisy of the republicans. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen if a Democrat had engaged in such behavior. Or as with case Obama who did noting scandalous but the republicans accused him of all sorts of unconstitutional acts. Republicans will do anything to hold on to their party's power.
That said I do not want to see trump impeached. Trump is a lying baffoon and a disgrace to the nation. Pence on the other hand us far more dangerous. He is not the smartest guy on the hill and would have been a political has been if trump had not selected him. But Pernce does understand how congress works and could get things done. He is a theocrat and is in the back pocket of the Kochs. And the republicans would gladly support his plutocratic theocratic agenda. I say vote them all out, every last hypocritical republican.
2
If there is any glee to be had by Democrats, it is from the hope that finally . . . finally, the truth may be emerging from the smoke that the president and Republicans have been blowing.
For Republicans, the darkness at the bottom of the rabbit hole you've been living in may be about to swallow you. Your days are numbered! If you aren't criminally liable for covering up the criminal acts of this president, and you aren't tossed out in the primaries, the general election will not be kind to you.
For the Republican base . . . I hope you enjoy living in your information bubble, but bubbles have a nasty habit of bursting. The longer you stay in there, the higher your fall once it inevitably does.
We watched quite a lot of Michael Cohen's testimony. All of the Republicans appeared to be using the same "talking points" sheet, about attacking the witness for lying. They missed the fact that Cohen wasn't just giving disputable testimony- he was presenting a philosophical discussion on the Faustian Bargain. Republican Senators show themselves to be tools of a corrupt and ignorant regime- precisely what Mr. Cohen was warning about.
2
He is also: the worst president who ever lived, the most corrupt and the one who posed the greatest danger to the Republic are all the same man...and he is our president right now.
1
What will it take to separate his supporters from him? How much truth and from what sources? Didn't he once say he could walk down 5th avenue and shoot someone and his followers would still vote for him?
1
Trump defenders point out that Cohen is a convicted felon who has previously lied to congress. True, but they can't avoid the fact that Cohen, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and a group of other convicted felons, are the "best people" Trump said he hires.
158
If the GOP labels him a "proven liar," aren't they referring to all the positive things he said about Trump in previous testimony? If all those denials and obfuscations were lies, shouldn't that make them outraged by the President's own lies and behavior? It's all completely absurd, and the GOP is the least funny joke in the US since the Vietnam war.
1
Nixon did not get indicted. If Nixon had been removed from office by impeachment or indicted and tried by a jury, Maybe we would have more responsible members of Congress that are ready ready to enforce the rule of law.
One felony has already been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Other felonies will be at that level when more evidence is revealed. All judges that have seen the redacted material have been shocked by the facts. Congress has been forewarned by Cohen, I hope they understood the admonition.
2
Mr. Kristof, the only thing we are "happy" about, is that what we have suspected from the start, is finally coming to light.
3
Interestmg that Mr Kristof talks about Watergate. AN obvious comparison, for sure, but it does make me wonder, as I have so often lately, about wether the Republicans learned anything from that experience. I cannot fathom why and how so many in the GOP continue to support, seeem to believe, and run interference for this man. It can only do them harm in the long run, as the should have learned.
1
It was noteworthy that, despite relentless, furious attacks from Republican committee members, Cohen was at times testy, but never rattled during his testimony. Why? Because, as he pointed out, he himself had many times played the same role that the Republicans were then playing--shouting, threatening, demeaning, and insulting--while attempting to silence people who might damage "Mr. Trump's" self-interest.
So, he recognized the performances for what they were: empty bluster covering up for corruption and incompetence. Would that Republicans could engage in just a bit of self-examination and moral gut-checking. They might glimpse the danger Trump poses to American democracy. Could such a sea-change occur without a knock on the door from the FBI? As Trump so often says, "We'll see what happens."
2
Thank You, Mr. Kristof. Your article is right on.
However, this is not about democrats/republicans. This is about the deep corruption that has taken over OUR systems and is destroying the lives of ALL Americans who aren't in the 0.01% Robber Baron class.
I read, in the 1980s while working for a major daily newspaper, that the American mafia had deciced to "go straight" and educate their offspring to work inside OUR corporate/legal/financial/political systems to use their model to take over.
The Con Don is the culmination of their goal. They have polluted OUR systems, stolen OUR hard-earned taxpayer treasure and destroyed the lives of average/poor Americans with their insatiable greed.
He's not "the donald". He thinks he's "the don".
WE THE PEOPLE must DEMAND that people in power who are not part of this criminal enterpirse step up and remove The Con Don and his mafia Robber Baron brethren from OUR governments and systems right NOW. Before they can further destroy OUR lives and world.
5
Agree with everything Mr. Kristof says. Another parallel to Nixon that should be kept in mind is that the Republicans did not turn on Nixon until the voters did. Anyone expecting Republican politicians to lead on this is ignoring the reality that these people will do anything to be re-elected, and at the moment Trump's grip on 80-90% of the Republican electorate is unflinchingly firm. Until the Republican voters turn on Trump, a la Cohen, nothing will change and the Republican politicians will continue to hold up ridiculous signs and generally embarrass themselves because this quite literally what their electorate wants them to do.
2
Cohen's laundry list of Trump's crimes against American is heartbreaking and I now truly feel victimized. But Cohen's last statements in which he cautioned that if Trump loses in 2020, there will be no peaceful transfer of power, was extremely unsettling.
2
"But the sum total of his testimony was devastating; decades from now, historians will continue to analyze it."
This is a man who admitted lying to Congress and was convicted on the basis of that admission; now he is to be believed when testifying before Congress? He has every reason to continue lying; initially he lied to protect Mr. Trump and now he needs to protect himself. He knows what they want to hear, and like any good con artist, that's what he says. Truth does not have any bearing on his words.
His testimony was nothing but a showpiece. Anything he said that is not backed up by documentation is unreliable; anything he said that was documented was redundant and unnecessary. It made for bad theater and wasted the time of the Congress.
1
@mikecody
So if he initially lied to protect Mr. Trump, what truths were being concealed?
Luckily we don't have to listen to Mr. Cohen this time; the evidence he brought speaks for itself.
1
@mikecody But you obviously still tuned in....
@T.R.I. Actually, no. I relied on the news coverage to get the lowlights.
I never believed there would be direct evidence of collusion. Trump is a corrupted president. That is obvious. Same result as if we had evidence of conversations supporting meddling. Bottom line we have an administration impervious to corruption. Impervious the Russian meddling. Why is no one stressing that the Trump administration and Conservatives do not show any concern of the Russian disinformation campaign. We've developed the narrative about an elusive word, both in its meaning and defining the task of prosecutors to prove it, and Trump will claim "victory" if Mueller finds no direct evidence of collusion. His base will exhale and continue to support him. And Russia will continue to manipulate elections. And Trump will continue to lie and make decisions based on his ego and investments.
1
After 70 hours of interviews with the Special Prosecutor and his team, buttressed with all the Cohen files, tapes, hard drives and cell phones in their possession, the idea that Cohen would utter one peep of a falsehood after volunteering to testify under oath is absolutely preposterous. That would be obvious perjury and three years jail time would soon become many years more.
He produced a cancelled check for heaven's sake. As George Conway asked, is the check lying?
4
"...and you can fool some of the people all of the time.... " The tragedy is that so many millions believe Trump. If the future of the country depends on an informed and clear minded public. we have cause for despair.
3
True, and we all knew it, but it won't make a bit of difference. As long as the angry white minority and their henchmen in the Executive Branch, the Supreme Court, and the Senate are controlling the country (a minority of Americans by the way), it will be ignored. What Senate Republican cares one wit about what Trump does or has done unless it's to make the rich richer?
3
"“He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Cohen said."
Hopefully all the American farmers and others finally realize who this con man is and vote him out in 2020.
1
I wish the Democrats had waited for Mueller. A man who is above suspicion and of high moral character. A man who could expose matters leading to more senators opting for conviction.
Michael Cohen would still be doing Trump's work unless there was a FBI raid. If Trump lost, Cohen, Manafort and Trump would be not investigated, not paying taxes..while you and I scrape together our quarterly tax payments.
There were other Democrats who deserve a shout out, including some who responded to the outrageous insinuations and claims of Republicans on the committee, such as William Clay. Jim Cooper elicited one of Cohen's best rebukes to Republicans - you guys are doing now what I spent 10 years doing. Steven Lynch responded to the faux outrage expressed by Republicans of calling a "proven liar" to testify before congress. Ayana Pressley made some trenchant comments as well about racism and the fact that repeating something doesn't make it true. Jimmy Gomez dedicated time to elaborating on Trump's financial fraud.
The Republicans were directing their remarks to their voters, who aren't all that interested in the arcane details of what Trump knew and when. People like Debbie Wasserman Schultz were caught up in questioning about things Trump voters care little about, such as the Wikileaks drop (as Trump said, Obama didn't do anything, so why should I), versus asking questions that allowed Cohen to elaborate on the basest elements of Trump's nature. Republicans portrayed Cohen as a low-life who couldn't be trusted, and made huge deals about things he's done, such as financial misrepresentation that Trump has done in spades, and the question that's begging to be asked is why Republicans are willing to believe Trump if they don't believe Cohen. Trump, called Cohen a rat, not a liar. Snitches don't get their bad name for making stuff up about the activities of those they snitch on.
1
I also remember watching the Watergate hearings. As noted by others, we have no Republucans with integrity who will stand by the rule of law. They only wish to protect this pathetic excuse we have for a President, who lies continously for his own benefit. I don't care who runs against this low life, bottom feeder in 2020, if he survives that long, they will get my vote.
3
The Trump reality show just got real.
There is no more space in the closet.
They are tripping over the bones, trying to close the door.
"No, no, don't open the curtain, wait ..."
"democracy dies in darkness"
Run for the shadows you weak, blood suckers.
It's time to break out the hammers and wooden stakes.
We need Robert M. Van Helsing now, flashing his mirror.
Could this be the first real day of the walking dead?
Nick: my mother was glued to the TV in that period and forced me to spend time in front of the TV with her as John Dean testified. I’ll never forget the eyebrows of the Chairman. Nor has the lesson ever sunk in... that all politicians are liars - some more than others.
Perhaps that attitude is why so many suckers voted for trump in the first place.
Well, now we know. Capitalists are bigger liars and thieves than politicians.
“He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Cohen said. The funny thing about this is that the exact same thing can be said of Obama and the Clintons. In their cases, you have lower-middle class individuals leaving elected office with hundreds of millions of dollars. Churchill, FDR and Reagan left office broke. Trump is typical of this new breed of hyper-wealth which leaves the rich feeling insecure. They can never make enough. Sanders, too, is reported this week to be pushing socialism while buying multiple properties. Reagan left office without enough money to buy a house. He was gifted a place in Bel Air by his pals. Obama vacations on private yachts and lays plans to buy a basket ball team or a media corportation. By the time he is through, he'll be a billionaire. Trump kept his campaign on a tight budget, slept in his plane, while Hillary spent a billion dollars, but Trump is vilified for not having been ambitious enough, not, one might say, desperate enough. Hillary wanted it all since she was eleven; Trump saw moving into the WH as a step down. For this, he is despised. Listening to this vile drivel from Cohen reminds me of reports from Lubyanka Prison in Moscow when KBG agents bargained for their lives by slandering their bosses. "Blame it on Beria!"
2
Richard Nixon famously said, “people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook."
We learned through the Watergate Hearings that he was a crook.
And yesterday we learned that Donald Trump is a bigger crook. The biggest crook. To ever occupy the White House.
But more important, we learned yesterday that Republicans don't care that their president is a crook. They are perfectly fine with a "racist," "con man" and a "cheat" for president.
What Republicans absolutely cannot abide is anyone actually revealing to the American people that their president is a crook.
3
Racist, con man, cheat. And yet, with all the volumes of recordings made by Cohen, not one racist epithet, not one indication of collusion, not one criminal act.
Impeccable timing on the record button Cohen. If you guess if the next playing card is red or black, the odds of getting all right, or all wrong are the same. The odds of not getting anything that you claim that matters? Those are pretty bad odds.
1
Cultists do not see the truth. Republicans are all cultists. They only saw that Cohen had lied to congress for Trump, thus their argument was allowed (and Elijah Cummings could have said no arguments about the fact that he lied to congress for Trump - just like he said no questions about Russia - Democrats are useless).
America is mediocre because it thinks Republicans are not a cult.
What an embarrassment. The whole thing. My taxpayer money pays these guys salaries? Really? Especially the old, white, angry republican men? Meh. I'm moving to Venezuela.
1
"The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar."
So then shouldn't the same hold true for Trump?
You have to be brain dead to be a Republican these days.
The irony is that Trump's infomercial has tanked his reputation -- globally. Who's going to work with him after he leaves the WH -- and after he serves time -- except other racists, con men, and cheats.
Worst president in history, by far.
4
Anyone who’s lived in the tristate area for any length of time knew full well that he was a grifter and a con-man. Only the rubes in middle America fell for his fake reality TV persona. Sadly there were enough of them to get him elected, and here we are. Doesn’t mean he ever stopped being a grifter and con-man.
2
I've been wondering what Congressional Republicans' secrets are. They could be alcoholics or drug addicts; animal, child and spousal abusers; thieves; tax and/or election cheats; liars; closeted homosexuals; sexual batterers; hypocrites; deeply in debt, etc. I don't see one who is placing the good of the country above his or her selfish interests and I wonder what percentage are being blackmailed or are otherwise compromised. But I know that as a whole they have totally abrogated their sworn oaths. Every day they fail to act responsibly they are wasting our precious time, squandering our resources and spitting on their own children's' futures.
1
Even the relatively evenhanded Mr Kristof has now jumped on the Times' all out effort to smear Trump. For instance, never mentioned in the article is the testimony Ms Patton at the House Committee today.
Congressman Meadows said said Ms. Patton, who is African-American, “doesn’t agree with” the “demeaning” remarks Cohen made that Mr. Trump is racist during testimony in front of the committee.
“She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist,” Mr. Meadows said.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/27/mark-meadows-brings-in-former-trump-staffer-to-ref/
3
What is the lowest stage of the human condition?
Is it severe illness?
Ostracism by one's social community?
Being stranded alone with no hope, far away from one's world?
I suggest that mankind's worldly nadir -
- or at least the angry Democrats' -
- is when three years of constant high-stress political warfare boils down to a known loser on his way to the pen who knows the political enemy intimately and comes up with - NOTHING.
The Dems agitated for two sold years plus the entire 2016 campaign and Trump's President-elect transition period and have - What? - to show for it?
He paid for protection from a kiss-&-tell. Oh, and he HEARD that Wikileaks had some hot stuff on Hillary.
Everyone with a computer knew Wikileaks had hot stuff on America's most buyable Cabinet Secretary in history in the summer & fall of 2016.
Did you think people only got info HERE?
This just in: Trump had advance info on when it was expected to rain in NYC, too. Gasp!
It's been a slow news week, eh, Nicholas?
1
If Shakespeare were alive today he would write a play that would express all of our feelings but I fortunately he is not. What we heard today makes one tremble in acknowledgement of how quickly we have become less than human. We are con artist and racist just like Trump. Half of us love dictators cause con man trump does.
Us normal people have absolute faith in the power of the people and our vote. The GOP are members of the traitor community and no American wants to be voting for them.
Enough is enough
I watched it all .... having worked in DC (hated the place) I understand how evil the place ... MC got nothing from his appearance ? Who told him he would benefit .. who put him up to it?
Nothing new was learned -- we saw a desperate man .. trying to be relevant. I was surprised the Dems had not worked together with the questioning .... they kept asking the same question over and over ... only to have MC answer the same each time/
No side had a change of mind -- the real loser was MC Cohen.
Only the Democrats are taking this liar at his word.....
The rest of us don’t believe him.
1
@There But you believe the guy he lied for on a ten year basis? Got it.
These are petty compared to the highest crime of all : treason.
Trump abased himself in front of Putin, as John McCain noted with disgust. Whatever Nixon was, he was no traitor.
4
I didn't listen to the whole hearing, but I did hear a pushback from a Democratic congressman to the repeated Republican attacks on Cohen because of his criminal convictions. He pointed out that virtually every trial on RICO charges or into organized crime has relied on testimony from convicted criminals. And this, sadly, is what we seem to have in the White House - an organized crime gang. The Mafia doesn't hire upright, honest people, and neither, apparently, does Trump - just look at how many of his Cabinet secretaries are clearly corrupt, how many of his appointees have left in the face of scandal, how many of them have been indicted and/or convicted. These are not the sort of people an honest man associates with. I can only guess that the Republican party continues to support him because he makes other, terrible, Republican presidents, going back to Warren G. Harding, look good in comparison.
The only bright spot is, judging from the documents that the Mueller investigation returned to Cohen, the ones they kept must be truly damning - maybe even damning enough to convince a Republican. The sooner this farce of a presidency is ended, the better.
1
While being gleeful isn't appropriate, being grateful and even celebrating saving our Democratic Republic and Constitution from destruction is appropriate...if we can.
Remember: when the greatest threats to us were defeated, first Nazi Germany, then Tojo's Japan, both were occasions for celebrating in the streets.
When the Articles of Impeachment were sent down in 1974, Judiciary Chair Peter Rodino wept despite a bi-partisan vote.
But when they were sent down for Clinton, Henry Hyde cheered and was excited, though not one Democrat signed on, making it totally partisan.
If Nadler's committee sends down Articles of Impeachment, he'd be a fool to do so with NO Republican votes. This President isn't Richard Nixon or William Clinton. He has not on shred of Presidential gravitas or the honor of the office. Him being gone would be like lancing a boil to drain an infection.
I suspect that the most chilling dimension of this is hardly recognized: Cohen and Trump are in sync in a con game together:
Cohen needs to denounce Trump in order to absolve himself of earlier lies that were part of loyalty, which his future parole board will appreciate. But he's said nothing that makes Trump culpable beyond a reasonable doubt. OK, Trump's a slime—and proud of it, like any mobster.
Meanwhile, Trump denounces Cohen as a traitor to loyalty, which serves Trump's need for plausible deniability and helps Cohen look to be a credible denouncer (but uncredible accuser).
But Cohen is actually taking that bullet he said way back that he'd take for his pal. He's actually helping Trump via Cohen’s lack of credibility.
Yet, here's the ugliest part: Trump, a narcissist being proud of his narcissism (and especially admiring other narcissists as one of his own kind), privately agrees that he's a racist and con man and cheat, because that's how business for a mobster works. Every con man knows he's a con man, and is proud of it. (And racists learn who they can let their hair down with, in the light of "civil rights," proud of their racism.)
There's a coded game going on between these two swamp things, and you can bet that Cohen is going to have a comfy place in the Trump mob in Florida when he gets parole.
1
Mexican joke of a person denouncing in a meeting a town politician:
(Politician guard) "Can I kill him, boss?"
(Politician) "No, wait, as soon as he utters a lie, you blow him up."
I think it applies in this case.
Far from gleeful, I found myself profoundly sad and then seething that the Republicans have brought us to this. And still the Republicans defend it by attacking Cohen and not by refuting the incredibly damning facts. They are a craven lot who have earned their pathetic role as defenders of the indefensible.
1
If Trump is even slightly honest what was he doing with a lawyer like that for over 10 years??.Hannity,also a Cohen client,was filled w rage that the Dems had a hearing when Trump was in Vietnam a the N Korean President..How come Hannity has a job??What is wrong w Fox?
With the devoted support of 89% of Republicans Big Donnie Bone Spurs won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Sept maybe the golf course.
1
Democrats have long tried to paint Republicans as racist.
But as a Republican raised in the Deep South in the racist '40s and '50s, I wrote about how liberals have conducted an insidiously racist policy for decades.
"Why affirmative action failed black families where it matters most" http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-affirmative-action-has-failed-black-families/
This is NOT what you may think it is. It may be shocking for some. Those who denounce it (or me) without reading it risk making themselves look foolish to those who do read it.
1
Bring on Allen Wexelberg! (With apologies for probable misspelling. )
1
It's true that Cohen, having perjured before, is a tainted witness. But the Republicans were uninterested in attacking the factual basis of his testimony. They could, for example, have argued the uncashed check says nothing about what it was for. But all they did was attack his character. It will be interesting to see what corroborating evidence the special counsel and the southern district prosecutor supposedly have.
Yes, Mr Trump is everything Mr Cohen accused him of being.
When Cohen's closed door testimonies are added to the other corroborated evidence compiled by Mr Mueller and the Southern Distict, the end game will be underway. Look for pardons, Mr Trump's resignation and a SCOTUS role.
Or not.
Mr Trump may be an innocent victim of a "deep state" conspiracy to deny him and the people who voted for him his rightful legitimacy to and authority as the President of the United States.
In either scenario, this is a historical moment which will influence politics and civil discourse for decades to come.
Personally, I put the odds at ~90% for the former and ~10% for the latter. Others can decide for themselves.
The big issue we need to think about is how the citizens of this country deal with each other. Mr Trump was elected president because he won the most votes in the states whose electoral clout was sufficient to win his election. Personally, I think the Russian meddling and Mr Trump's lies and xenophobia were the determining factors.
Hard as it may be, we welcome the remaining thinking, empathetic, rational etc people in the republican party to break ranks and join the opposition to Mr Trump and his congressional lapdogs. They voted against Hillary more than for Trump. They were conn'd by Mr Trump, his propaganda - fueled echo chamber and the Russian agitprop.
Whether that's 10% of the republicans or 25%, they can help with the healing that will be necessary.
Since you like what Mr. Cohen is saying, you prefer to believe it, hence the uncritical acceptance and glee over his testimony. Concrete corroboration would be better, but you are simply speaking to your audience, one that wants to believe everything Cohen says. And that is why columns like these will not influence or convince anyone else outside of those already sharing your point of view.
1
@LTJ And likewise the opposite is true of you. But tell me why oh why doesn't he release those tax returns? BECAUSE HE IS HIDING SOMETHING. Plain and simple. No other explanation. Anything you offer on that has no concrete corroboration.
1
Really. For shame to all the liberals and to Mr. Kristoff. What actions by Mr Trump makes him a racist?
Which ethnic group is beyond reproach that even if individuals within their group commit crimes nothing can be said.
Let one of you define which law Mr. Trump has broken in the primary, election and now as president?
A Clinton attorney of record is representing Mr. Cohen pro bono.
Trump Derangement Syndrome indeed.
3
Sums it up pretty well. But the shame of it all is that it was known right from the start when he announced he was running for the presidency and despite that so many voted for him. It is quite an indictment of where we have arrived now in our society.
1
Putin has leverage over Trump and the republicans continue enabling a traitor in the Oval Office ! Trump lied about having no business in Russia ... he lied to reporters ... and he lied to the American public. Our democracy is under attack and Trump is responsible.
2
I thought one of the more interesting statements Mr. Cohen made was about intimidating Trumps schools from showing his high school and college grades and sat scores. Wasn’t it Trump who ranted about President Obama’s grades? Even claimed few people knew him at Harvard? And yet Mr. Obama was elected first African-American head of Harvard Law Review? To paraphrase a song by Alanis Morrisette “Isn’t it Ironic?”
2
Well, it was a dispiriting day, eh?
But the Republicans stubborn refusal to recognize Trump's corrupt incompetence is not mystifying.
They don't like Trump.
But they like him more than they like people of color (other than Meadow's one black friend). They like him more than they like immigrants. They like him more than they like intellectual "elites," meaning people who have critical thinking skills. They like him more than they like gay or transgender Americans. They like him more than they like those uppity feminists. They like him more than they like atheists or Muslims, who are not really Americans after all.
2
Everyone who is now saying we shouldn't believe Cohen because he is a liar and a criminal should ask themselves this question:
What does it say about Donald Trump's judgment of character that he chose a liar and a criminal for his lawyer for over 10 years? Did Cohen turn from an upstanding citizen to a crook overnight? Or was it that it was precisely those qualities of lying and criminality that drew Trump to Cohen in the first place?
4
It’s risible that the committee Republicans pilloried Cohen for past lies yet they never criticize Trump for his much more frequent and much more consequential daily lies. Their hypocrisy is disgusting and cowardly. They apparently learned nothing from the Nixon era. They are a corrupt party.
3
Nick, all of Cohen's testimony, taken as a whole is an incredible smear campaign by an absolute criminal who used his relationship with Trump to further his interests along with defrauding banks and others. Absolutely pathetic that the Dems had to have this the week Trump is in Hanoi. The Dems will not accept Trump as President no matter how much their resistance hurts the country. Sad.
President Trump has surrounded himself with corrupt, nefarious and dissolute individuals. Have we forgotten what our mothers used to say to us when we were young, "Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are."
1
A racist, a con man and a cheat. Even if true, none of those things is against the law.
1
@M Cheating on taxes isn't against the law? Conning people out of money isn't against the law? No wonder Donnie Two Scoops is POTUS. Americans who have no idea what is illegal.
1
The Republicans, every one of them, are accessories before the fact. They are Trump's accomplices and may be criminally charged.
Republicans are also accessories after the fact. That's additional time in a state penitentiary.
Republicans are a criminal organization. Lock them up.
2
H.L. Mencken famously once wrote that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows went him one one better yesterday by conclusively demonstrating that Trump’s toadies are moral cowards and ignominious suckups.
4
Republicans are tone deaf. On the one hand they claim to be evangelical Christians devout prayerful on the other they blatantly support a “racist conman cheat”. If redemption is what they want to gift trump, he has to first show remorse, instead he is going in front of the media in Vietnam and telling the world his former lawyer told so many lies about him. Who is he fooling? It’s code words for the Republicans, stick to my narrative and I will bring you power and victory. In his 70s now, if Mr Trump still does not understand truth there’s very little hope for him, no matter how many prayer breakfasts he attends or conducts Christian prayers before his WH meetings. Ugh
1
Seems appropriate, considering we are a nation of racists, con men, and cheats. That the greatest of them all should be elected president is no real surprise.
1
Trump and Cohen = both liars. One consistently lies to benefit himself and his kleptocracy. The other lied to protect the same things, but is now telling the truth and submitting documentation showing the treasonous deceit of the other.
1
Meadows and Jordan defending Trump by tearing into Cohen as viciously and demonically as they did suggests complicit treason.
And Cohen is a documented liar.
A person perfectly suited to support the Democratic party's narrative.
1
@Dude Abiding - you'd still support him, wouldn't you, if he did walk down 5th Avenue and shoot someone?
2
The trump circus and this monumental distraction continues. In one ring we have shiny glitter provided by an ego-centric president who darts from one self-aggrandizing, self generated meaningless story to stay ahead of the news cycle and draw the klieg lights to his inflated ego. The second ring has a 24 hour news cycle of the trump legal problems initiated by trumps campaign and dubious election but maintained by the hypocrisy of republican’s refusal to honor our constitution and our rule of law. In the third ring is a cast of smaller individually minor but collectively catastrophic institutional dismantling of government regulations and rules that have and will bring life threatening consequences in our near futures.
We collectively opened this circus by giving this would-be-president a public platform and confrontational bully pulpit. This circus has mistreated immigrants, dismantled environmental protections, misused executive branch authority, insults our constitutional framers and teaches are children that lies, deceit and misdirection can bring you power and fame. It is time to shut down this charade, close the tent and send it packing into obscurity where only its most fervent racist, xenophobic constituents risk to follow.
1
Cohen is like the Scientologists who are rescued from the cult. Speaking to the still enraptured republican cultists on the committee, he bluntly pointed out how if they don’t snap out of it, if someone doesn’t perform an intervention on them, that they will suffer his fate. Great advice. They are probably considering it over coffee this morning. They should take that advice, as should the cult base that can never see any wrong that tony soprano trump ever can do. Snap out of it before it’s too late.
2
Don’t be surprised if the SDNY is crafting a RICO indictment against the Trump crime family, even as Republicans furiously revile Cohen.
4
The ~40 of Americans who approve of this President know "he is a racist, he is a con man, and he is a cheat”, just like Cohen knew. Just like everyone knew.
They just don't care. Not in 2016. Not now.
In fact, I expect Trump's approval ratings to go up a point or two when the Trump faithful, who were momentarily upset when they realized their "tax cut" was another con, are reminded by Cohen that Trump really is a racist, that they can count on that, if nothing else. And that will be enough for many.
After all, that is why they voted for the con in the first place.
4
Yes, I think by now most of us have realized that Trump "is a racist, a con man, and a cheat". The question is what are we going to do about it? The Republicans are circling their wagons and skirting the issue of any wrongdoing by Trump. The Democrats are trying to mount an offense but they do not have sufficient firepowe at this point to do something concrete about this disgraceful situation. The "progressive" movement within the Democratic party is in a fledgling state unable to register a real presence that can make a difference. Thus the end result is a status quo and Trump walks free. That is a real disgrace.
2
Nixon undermined peace negotiations with North Vietnam before taking office. In between assuming power and the Watergate cover-up, Nixon provided aid and comfort for the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile; he initiated the "War on Drugs" with the intention (per John Ehrlichman) of disenfranchising blacks and leftists; he orchestrated the illegal secret bombings of Cambodia and Laos; he had his own Dirty Tricks Committee; and, with the help of J. Edgar Hoover in his waning days, he presided over a truly corrupt and politicized FBI, every bit as nefarious as the paranoid visions our most conspiratorial Deep Staters can conjure up today.
That's a lot for our current president to compete with. I'm not yet convinced Mr. Trump is the clear favorite to win the Oscar in the Most Corrupt category.
Nixon left a very bad taste in our mouths when he flashed his double V for Victory sign and hopped on the helicopter out of Dodge, but he also left at least a complicated political legacy.
Trump will likely leave an even worse taste in our mouths ... and a legacy uncomplicated by any good accomplishments whatsoever.
Despite being high tides of polarization, it's difficult to compare 1969-1974 and 2017-20??. Those were different times.
But if, knowing what I know today, I had to walk into a voting booth and choose between one of these two scoundrels for President, I would vote for Nixon every time.
1
Yes Trump dwarfs Nixon, and that is true even without mentioning Trump's treason.
1
I think Cohen helped make Trump a sympathetic figure . No Russian collusion. None. A developer wants to build a building. A top female govt official approves the sale of nuclear material to the Russians and the money flows, hmm..No collusion here. LOL.
1
Beware of all who have reality-distortion fields. Their wakes are full of broken people.
1
I was struck by the wasted opportunity by GOP members of the Oversight Committee who collectively chose to discredit Cohen by repeatedly calling him a liar. (Funny, how they never call out Trump for his many lies and fabrications.)
With imagination and intelligence, they could have asked questions in support of Trump but instead chose a very weak tactic. The subtext, to me, was clear: there is no way to defend the man that Trump is (or isn't.)
The questions asked in the interest of truth were by Democrats who were roundly impugned by the other side as having an agenda to impeach Trump.
Our system is broken.
It is shattered by partisan politics with little regard for our Constitution or, very simply, for what is right, what is true.
Trump will be an ugly footnote in our history soon. However, we should be seriously alarmed by the daily erosion of the power and prestige of the office he holds. We should be alarmed by many of the representatives who represent us. Where are the Congressmen who - once upon a time and across both aisles - were committed to their search for truth?
1
Amazing, really amazing. Neither Mueller nor NY prosecutors would use Cohen as a witness, his credibility being so compromised that whatever he would say in court would not carry any weight. And here he is, the Democrats first star witness, the answers prepared for him by Schiff and Cummings during the pre-hearing meetings, so much he admitted, and, according to Mr Kristof finally we arrived at the point when the demise of Trump is imminent. As it was countless times before.
And the core argument: because some Republicans believee Trump we need to believe Cohen. Really? Democrats believed Hilary, who lied a lot, how about that.
How can you people take yourself seriously?
1
Let Cohen's description be taught in our history classes.
Cohen: “He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,”…. .” this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history.’ He never expected to win the primary….the general election.”
This perfectly fits the witty and sad sum up by the late great NYT columnist Russell Baker in the NY Review of Books:
“… what Trump saw when glancing at the arthritic Grand Old Party was the empty shell of a political machine, AVAILABLE FOR OCCUPANCY.
Adding it to the world-famous assortment of properties and consumer goods bearing the Trump name—hotels, golf courses, gambling casinos, colleges, beefsteaks, and so forth—would give him sorely needed political legitimacy and would enhance his celebrity, always a serious consideration with Trump. He took it over.
For people who like history with high-flown nomenclature, this period might be called “the Trump Captivity,” and “captivity” describes the condition in which the Grand Old Party awoke late in the 2016 presidential campaign to discover it was wearing the Trump logo.”
Baker had it right--- occupation of the GOP and its voters.
What’s the antidote to this shame on America before the world? How to extricate from political (and economic) occupation?
That should be the next few columns by Kristoff who is an international journalist.
Trump had a black girl friend,Kara Young in the 90's. He has appointed several Indian-American women and Ben Carson to his administration. So why is he racist?
But progressives have enlarged the meaning of the word racist so that even something like, "immigration laws should be enforced" makes you racist.
I am distressed that Kristof, an otherwise nice (if naive) man has fallen for this politically motivated abuse of the language.
What about the other two charges? Probably true but I do not actually KNOW.
2
In the second photo you see Kim confronting John Bolton. Bolton is the reason there is no deal.
It was stunning to see this spectacle in the hearing room of the House of Representatives.
Here was a man publicly testifying that the president of the United States was a cheat, a racist, a con man. There was testimony of payoffs, lies, intimidation. And then there was Matt Gaetz floating around the room like the ghost of Christmas past.
We are so desensitized after two years of Trump that this event seemed normal, something totally expected, and unsurprising.
This was a mob hearing implicating the president of the United States. And the feckless Republicans have a contract out on the rat who spilled the beans.
1
Michael Cohen once claimed he’d “take a bullet” for Trump, but we now see that his loyalty had limits. Seems Republicans like Meadows and Jordan have the ability to support Trump’s lying criminality, looking as if they would gladly take that proverbial bullet. Okay fellas, that “bullet” is coming for you. Look for it in November of 2020.
2
Former NY Times reporter, and Pulitzer prize winner, David Cay Johnston made the case for Trump's criminality in mid-2015. The rest of the media ignored him.
This is how it starts:
I have covered Donald Trump off and on for 27 years — including breaking the story that in 1990, when he claimed to be worth $3 billion but could not pay interest on loans coming due, his bankers put his net worth at minus $295 million. And so I have closely watched what Trump does and what government documents reveal about his conduct.
Reporters, competing Republican candidates, and voters would learn a lot about Trump if they asked for complete answers to these 21 questions.
http://www.alternet.org/21-questions-donald-trump
The Great Confaulator-In-Chief was served for over 10 years by the Handmaiden Collaborator Michael Cohen. They played in the same playpen together.
Surprised by Cohen's testimony? I'm not in the least!
Our current President is a known Wheeler Dealer salesman & Reality Show actor par excellence. He was trained in hypnotic sales & persuasion techniques by Master NLP/Hypnotherapist Tony Robbins. No matter what you think of him, the fact is, he's 'ugely' successful at hyperbolically selling his brand.
Some people are even almost religiously ecstatic about him. Never underestimate the power of someone who knows how to use his words to consciously trigger people's amygdala (reptile brain) by using fear, 'fight or flight' techniques to get people 'sticking to you' almost in a 'Savior' role.
Ever notice how this nationalist, populist trend in US seems to have 'exported' to elements in England, Italy, Hungary, Brazil etc? Tapping into ancient, primal fears of 'the other' and 'being overtaken' is a trending 'wave' beyond the US.
Anyone with eyes can follow the corrupt money trail of property development profits with ties to Russian money launderers and gangsters some of whom lived on the floor just one level from him him prior to his current 'job.
Still, witnessing "Little Rocket Man" conversing affectionately with "Donnie Dotard" is transformative. Despite negatives, the fluidity in roles of 'who is the enemy' & who is 'friend' is remarkable and marvelous!
"only to market himself and to build his wealth and power"
The day after Trump's 'rapist Mexicans' campaign announcement speech, a Latin American colleague asked me in the office, 'Hey man, is this Trump guy for real?', to which I responded, 'No. It's just his business to self-promote. He's not really trying to win. Besides, a guy like that CAN'T win in a country like the United States.'
I held that view to the bitter end: Nov 2016.
Let this be a lesson to us all: nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
1
It's hard to take Michael Cohen seriously. Anyone should be highly skeptical of Michael Cohen given the range of what his current motivations could be and that he is a proven in court liar.
I don't see the Nixon connection to be perfectly honest either. Nixon was defined by Watergate, a real crime. Trump doesn't have a Watergate.
Also his line about suffering consequences because of Trump shows his weasel character. He did this to himself, he was convicted, he paid out checks, he lied...Not Trump. A liar who would still be committing crimes if he hadn't got caught for the man who he says is evil...please what an inconsequential hearing.
The problem I see is an election developing in which the offsetting claims are "Trump is a sleaze but looks out for you” vs. "The Democrats are nice guys who want to tax you to the gills and take away private health care.” Which do you think is going to frighten people more?
Democrats aren't gleeful. We are sad and disgusted.
The odiousness of a Trump administration was foreseeable. Any student of history knows full well what happens when a malignant narcissist is put in charge, and Trump's narcissism is so obvious they could just replace a text definition with his picture in the next DSM.
What is shocking, really shocking, are the number of Republican enablers who care nothing for honesty, decency, civility, morality, justice, their oath of office, or their country. Have they no decency? Have they no shame?
It’s mourning in America.
I was half-expecting some Republicans to start a line of inquiry about Benghazi.
1
People know that politicians lie.
People knew that G.W. Bush lied, cheated and drank and still they voted for him.
People knew that Obama was a big talker who tried to sell plans of grandeur that would never work, and still, they voted for him, they even gave him the Nobel Peace Price for things to come but were never really possible.
Obama then turned out not only not to close Guantanamo but also to be the president who ran the most and longest wars any US president ever did.
So there is a pattern of lies and the public has accepted lies as an art form and an entertainment.
People knew hat Trump was a seasoned liar, an adulterer, a racist, a sexist, a con man and a completely bankrupt loser and still, they voted for him.
It may be true that Trump never did expect to win the elections, but still, his victory was somewhat logical and, unless he will be impeached, he will also win the next elections.
Why?
Because people like a scandal and a cliffhanger.
Because Trump provides entertainment and power to those that have none but have a craving for it.
The GOP will let him fall unless absolutely necessary as Trump still has the support of his fans, more than ever.
And his fans will stick to him no matter what as they see in him someone, who is just as trashy as the soap operas they watch to get away from their own day to day life.
This is primary US POP culture.
No brains required, just a few gut feelings and the idea that "We will be strong again", "We'll show them"
1
Aside from his criminality, Nixon was a pretty good president.
The Republican effort to discredit Mr. Cohen is transparent and horrifying. Any means will justify the political ends. This was different from Watergate. This was more like an episode from The Sopranos.
It's true that Michael Cohen has very damaged credibility. But he has confessed, been sentenced and is expressing remorse. Even if there is reasonable doubt about his sincerity some truth is out. The old saying is true: "Birds of a feather flock together".
Clearly, Trump is a cancer on our national soul. He's incapable of feeling compassion or a motivation to a higher purpose.
He is simply too self-possessed to see beyond his own red and pimpled nose. He is the last person in the USA that one can count on to work for the "greater good". In fact, the "greater good" in Trump's mind is to ask himself, "How can I benefit the most from this relationship i.e. "What can I get out of this presidency"? He's incapable of embracing a larger whole where a concern for the welfare of others becomes a dominant theme. To Trump, it's all about "me, myself, and I".
He has demonstrated an inability to act and feel a genuine concern for the welfare of others. He is consumed by a need to be respected and appreciated by the public in general. His modus operandi is one of "divide and conquer" and not one of "unity".
The only conclusion one can draw from Trump's persona is that the White House is the last place where this man belongs. He's too selfish and tempermental to be relied upon to work for the "greater good". Functionally, he is the human equivalent of a "national disaster".
2
"He is a racist, he is a con man, he is a cheat."
After Charlottesville, countless Trump rallies and Trump's machinations to build the wall, and Trump's history of stiffing lenders and contractors, we didn't need Michael Cohen to remind us what Trump is. Cohen's statement is remarkable only because the fourth estate has dithered on speaking plainly about what is already clear to us.
1
Even more today, I don’t have the stomach to find out how the shameless Fox propaganda channel portrays today’s events.
Fox and Murdoch are damaging America at least as much as Trump.
The Republicans are right on one point: Cohen was a liar. And a prodigious liar at that.
But what Republicans are missing—or, more likely, ignoring—massively is that Cohen was Trump’s liar. He was Trump’s liar.
Cohen took his deceitful orders from Trump—the most prodigious, public prevaricator of our day. Cohen faithfully lied on the great liar’s behalf, either to save Trump from certain prosecution or to further some particular Trumpian interest. And Trump was (and is) such a micromanaging control freak that it seems there was no lie that wasn’t conceived by and ordered by him.
Cohen was merely the hack who was ordered, by direct command or by a wink and a nod, to lie his socks off in loyalty and service to Donald J. Trump. So to defend Trump by calling Cohen a liar is only to increase the spotlight’s beam with ever greater intensity upon the Supreme Liar himself.
1
Allegations from Cohen - a confessed and convicted pathological liar - don’t cause a rational person much concern.
He said what the democrats wanted to hear and that's all he said.
Why not focus on winning the election in 2020 rather than this continuous effort to undo the election of 2016 and why you lost to Trump to begin with? Hatred, pure hatred. Very unbecoming of the dem party.
I think we all know what Donald Trump isn’t: a real president.
1
"He is a racist"
It was offensive when Meadows used a black woman employed by Trump as proof that Trump is not racist. Tlaib was wrong to imply Meadows was racist, but her instinct to call out his stunt was right on. The act was offensive. It was the type of stunt Trump might do to prove he is not a racist. Trump hires one or two black people to serve as a front -- think Amorosa or Dr. Ben Carson -- while the bulk of power potions are filled with white people. It's true of his hires in the White House, and according to Cohen, true of hire hires in the Trump organization. While Tlaib did sort of make a fool of herself with her awkward call out, I think Meadows looked like the bigger, more offensive fool with his stunt to prove Trump was not racist.
In the rear view mirror, the Watergate scandal appears quaint and Nixon was a girl scout compared with Trump.
1
Isn't this new testimony the opposite of his last testimony? How can both testimonies be lies? Duh!!!
Regarding scandal, Trump's presidency has actually been pretty predictable. The signs were there. Apparently, so were the signed checks.
Speaking as somebody who generally votes for Democrats, I cannot take satisfaction in the diminution of democratic grandeur that will be a direct result of Trump and his followers. I would far rather have been proven wrong and seen the country thrive than be right and see it flounder. Given what many Republicans and right-wingers have said in the press the past decade or so, many of them do not seem to return the same interest of country before party.
I want a functional and honorable Republican Party instead of the Machiavellian travesty splayed out before us. Maybe if enough Republicans want that, then go to the organizing meetings and conventions as well as the ballot boxes, we can have it again. In the interim, I feel no urge to move to Republican-land to fix it.
Cohen has had his Come to Moses moment. He urged the GOP to follow suit now instead of later. I really wish they'd listen.
For me personally, the real tragedy of these proceedings, the depressing reality, is that the congressman who represents my district, for whom I did not and never would vote, is a ring leader of the Republican smokescreen. And there is not a damn thing I can do about it. I'm sure millions of Americans can say the same. That is truly offensive. It woud be one thng if he represented the expressed will of a democratically empowered majority, but this district is one of those cited in NC as being "surgically" gerrymandered. Disgusting.
How significant were the midterm elections? The House Oversight Committee Democrats have new witnesses to corroborate Cohen's testimony. Additional lines of inquiry about facts. The Chairman in an interview the need to move forward with caution no reason to rush. Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff also in pursuit of facts.
It should not be lost on anyone continued GOP control of House would have stuffed all of this. Jordan and Meadows along with others displayed the blind allegiance Cohen so clearly noted. He and the GOP guilty of covering and protecting Trump.
1
The final quote is the one that keeps echoing for me as well. Call Cohen any name you want. Believe or disbelieve any part of his testimony. But the truth of his warning, saying in effect, "If you want what I have, do what I did" rings genuine and profoundly felt.
1
Cohen’s testimony was compelling. President Trump might indeed be the most disreputable person to hold the office. But to what ends?
It is all too apparent that the political divide between Democrats and Republicans taint our political system. Cohen’s declarations reinforced those who seek Trump’s removal as well as harden the positions of those who back the president.
If impeachment proceedings somehow come to fruition, then it will rest with the Senate as to the fate of Donald Trump. What is the likelihood that the Republican controlled Senate will vote for Trump’s dismissal?
Moreover, given the parameters of the Department of Justice, Mueller’s report does not have to be released in toto. It is up the AG to release some, all, or none. Take the AG to court? Eventually it will reach the Supreme Court. With a majority of the court beholden to Republicans, what are the odds that they will side against one of their own?
Our country is subdivided. Jonathan Robbin and PRIZM demonstrated that decades ago. If factual information cannot even be agreed upon, then the larger questions of legality and justice are beyond our reach.
For all the drama that we are undergoing, Donald Trump’s reelection should not be discounted. The wall we should be worried about does not lie between Mexico and the US, but those that separate our nation.
None of this is a surprise. We all knew what Trump is for a long time now. Trump is fairly transparent. The folks who voted for him, his base, absolutely knew what they were doing. They will couch it in veiled "he's a very successful businessman beholding to no one" nonsense but honestly, Trump and the base are one in the same.
3
The Repub questioners kept harping on Cohen's credibility but anyone who is in close quarters with Trump is sketchy. So any investigation into Trump is going to include sketchy people. That shouldn't stop the investigation.
1
I share your concern and sense of despair while observing the current state of affairs and overall health of the our nation as a democracy. For the past two years, the POTUS, our leaders in the Senate and House seem to have lost their focus and sense of purpose. WHY don't more Republican Leaders and also Democratic Leaders CARE that the man occupying the Oval Office has little interest in serving the people of this country? Each and every day, Trump's behavior... his words... and his actions demonstrate his indifference in serving anyone or anything other than his own personal interests and ego. He is a prodigious liar and cheat. We didn't need to interview Michael Cohen to discover this...although Mr. Cohen's testimony does aptly convey the greed and manipulative games taking place inside the Oval Office. But for me a more dangerous reality was revealed during the Cohen hearings. The apathy and cluelessness of many of our Congressional Representatives serving in Congress is appalling. It seems to me that most members seemed more fixated on party bickering and "winning" than protecting the Constitution. Rep. Lewis was the only one who really moved me. I am deeply concerned that the American Democracy will survive..
1
Out of the many chilling things that Mr. Cohen said on yesterday, and the one which got my attention---portending real danger to the Republic was this: Cohen said that if Trump looses in 2020, there will not be a peaceful transition of power. I have said this many times over the last two years to friends (given Trump's need to win all cost, or explain why he lost at all cost). Given his vast ego needs to appear strong, It could never endure a lost that suggest the majority of the country rejected him. So that statement alone from Cohen puts us all on notice. Our most dangerous days could be ahead. May God help us.
3
I applaud you, Mr. Kristof - a very good analysis. The most siginifcant statement by Mr. Cohen, GOP leaders should internalize is, “I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.” He added: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.” Each supporter of this pathological liar and cheater (our president) will be haunted by the history of their next generatio how could they take a position they have been taking since Mr. Trump's candidacy knowing fully well what materials Mr. Trump is made of. He (Mr. Trump) is only for himself - country is secondary if he can brand his name including boasting of winning the nobel proze by manipulation.
2
I was amused at the way Republicans kept pointing out that Cohen is a man of low character. Do you think a person as corrupt as Trump will hire people of upstanding character with impeccable morals? Hardly. The only thing he values is loyalty. What he wants is people who will be willing to break the law on his behalf and keep their traps shut. Look how many of his inner circle are now under indictment. That's why the comparisons with the mob are so apt.
11
Daddy's an alcoholic. We all know this. But don't you dare ever say so out loud at the dinner table -- or the rest of the family will attack you personally and viciously.
Republicans' "questioning" of Cohen was merely punishment for breaking a code of silence. They never questioned his substantive claims about Trump's mendacity. I hope that the Americans and Republicans still bedazzled by Trump recognize this dynamic from their own lives and that it gives them pause.
I also hope that Cohen's voice finally breaks through to Republicans: Trump is indeed mesmerizing but ultimately toxic. Cohen has standing to tell them that this is no game. Cohen is from inside TrumpWorld, and Cohen is a man paying the personal price for his loss of integrity. Like Republican politicians, Cohen hoped to trash his own ethics and other peoples' lives on behalf of Trump, while evading personal ruin himself. It must have been a real "high" to believe he was clever enough to do so. Another sense in which Trump is a drug pusher. You buy the high, you get the crash. We needed to hear an addict tell us this. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
2
This goes to the nub of the Republicans Trump problem: "The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar. But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump?"
12
Actually very few of the people who "blindly follow Mr. Trump" will be going to jail like Mr. Cohen. Certainly none of the gas bag shameless U.S. representatives who enjoyed being on camera yesterday.
And as blatantly awful as Trump is, his dishonesty and ambition hasn't been paid for, like that of Nixon, with scores of thousands of lives in a pointlessly extended war in the country from which, weirdly, Trump is now returning.
But then, the Donald isn't done yet...
And yet, none of this matters to the likes of Republican "leaders" like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, who would sooner make love to a sewer rat than uphold their oath of office. Their oath is to money and power. The Trump presidency and Republican politicians are a gut punch to the American people, yet the grip of ignorance and tribalism in huge pockets of the American electorate will perpetuate the suffering now, and yet to come.
8
Trump's supporters already knew the guy was a cheap crook, but they saw in him the road to political power and a tax cut for all of their rich backers. So, unfortunately, Cohen's testimony won't make any difference. The rot has sunk deep roots in America's right wing minority, but these people and their money run the country. Too bad for the rest of us.
7
Do you think all the righteous and holier than thou Republicans headed back to their offices for a staff meeting to go over the "rules of allegiance" with their staff members? And pulled aside the pertinent members of their staff and had 'the chat' with them that goes something like this: "Remember the time......Now you know that didn't really happen...It was all hypothetical.....right?" "Just want to make sure we are all on the same page". Creating the next generation of liars. In real time.
The Republicans are painted into a corner.
Cohen worked for Trump for 10 years as a fixer and a professional threat machine (over 500) for Trump.
But what kind of person would retain that kind of lawyer?
The answer can only be a mobster-crook, or a fool, or possibly both.
The slimier Cohen is looks, the worse Trump seems to be.
5
This is a lying administration, they just don't know any better. Perhaps one day when they are all in the old age home they can reflect back on their respective misdeeds.
One way members of the GOP can show that they are not following Mr. Trump blindly is to vote against the wall he insists is necessary to protect us from Mexican criminals, a wall he falsely promised would be paid for by Mexico, a wall that would not require taxpayers to spend a penny. The wall reinforces Mr. Cohen's assertions that Mr. Trump is a racist, con-man, and a cheat. A "yes" vote on his executive actions will reinforce the notion that the GOP is a party that supports racism, lies, and betrayal.
Compare to Bill Clinton who sponsored China into the WTO and unwittingly financed the largest military expansion in world history
1
Uh what about the Virginia Governor etal. I guess they are good guys. Notice we have left that story quickly . Why no outrage ?
1
@John There's been plenty of outrage. Nice try, though.
The Cohen Show was worthwhile if only to show the blatant hypocrisy of Republicans. Honestly, who in their right mind would now vote for a Mark Meadows or Jim Jordan? One can only hope that Cohen is right as far as the fate of these pathetic political opportunists is concerned...those who toady to Trump and defend the lies and corruption that are the hallmarks of this administration and now, sadly, the GOP itself.
2
It was very poignant to hear Cohen tell the Republicans not to follow Trump because of where it led him. It is a cult and Cohen was a close confidant of the leader. Trump is a malignant narcissist who should have been impeached long ago.
5
China, Russia, NK, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Cuba love this. While Americans are distracted, they will take advantage
1
I don't know why anyone watches sports when politics are the real gladiatorial arena of today.
The trump era began with a third rate mobster that never matured past the third grade. Just subpoena his transcripts and SAT scores!
Actually, the most corrupt administration in American history still stands firm, on the shoulder of trump's tax payer paid army of new fixers - the Republican party, the most corrupt Republican party in history. Let's hope they do eventually suffer the same consequences as Cohen - No! Worse than Cohen! After all, Republicans are violating their oath to the Constitution that Cohen did not swear an oath to on behalf of Americans.
Only 8,718 lies? We should add to that total all the lies Cohen and all the Republicans have made on behalf of the trump. In the millions?
As trump consummates his love affair with little Kim in pursuit of a Nobel prize in Vietnam, his fixer has become his worst bone spur nightmare back in America.
Trump's passport should have been confiscated decades ago.
1
Trump is the quintesential Republican, personifying the unholy allure of greed and the potential of a big score. The GOP has survived and gets most of its support from its ability to dupe the electorate that if they support plutocratic fiscal and commercial political agendas, they too may be rewarded with countless wealth. Trump has pandered directly to this greed with his casinos, a failure like so many things that are promised by the proverbial devil, only to turn into dust and mire in one's all-too-credulous hands...
2
What Mr. Cohen did not mention was that being a racist, a con man and a cheat are Mr. Trump's good points.
3
The most fundamental hypocrisy of the GOP is calling out Cohen as not believable since he was caught lying and yet they believe Trump. Who lies frequently and often and daily.
Just the most ridiculous thing that I can't begin to get my head around. The proverbial "man behind the curtain" is standing in full view and the GOP is telling us he doesn't exist. Pay no attention.
I believe Cohen but then all along I've thought Trump is a con-man running the biggest con of all. Unfortunately his supporters will have their blinders on and their ear plugs firmly stuffed in their ears. They will be hearing none of this. Just like they've ignored and discounted all of the other information and evidence.
That said I don't know how much can be done with this legally.
1
Yes, Mr Kristof, Trump is so much worse than Nixon. Yet Trump still holds 80% approval among Republicans.
Fox News (oxymoron) and FB have given a HUGE platform to a willfully ignorant segment of the electorate. They are faithfully represented in Congress and the White House.
“I love the uneducated,” Donald J Trump Feb 2016.
1
I thought the left was concerned about collision by trump. But mueller has not charged anyone associated with trump with collision and now cohen admits he has no proof of collision. So now we're back to calling trump names (racist, con man) and making accusations based only on supposition. I remember when the left claimed trump had mental deficiencies or even dementia. What happened to that?
2
The strangest part of this is everyone, everyone in the greater NY area knows Mr. Trump is a carnival barker huckster. Just look at the flim flam he pulled with his AC casinos and it was obvious he plays fast and loose with the fact, law and other people's money.
I am at the point where I think America is getting what it deserves in his presidency. He was voted in by so many people who merely saw him on a tv show and believed if he looks and acts tough and smart, then he is. And the worst part is what Cohen said today doesn't matter at all to them.
2
What is missing in Michael Cohen's description of Donald Trump is "He's a criminal." According to Mr. Cohen Trump definitely is only protected by Department of Justice policy from being indicted on the two felony counts Cohen pleaded guilty to in the hush money conspiracy to silence his sexual encounter with Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels). Trump also was actively involved in the WikiLeaks release of Russian hacked emails of the Clinton campaign. And perhaps most stunning not only instructed Cohen to lie to Congress, but had his lawyers review abbreviate his fallacious testimony before he appeared before the House committee. This show both intent to onstrict, but more seriously aiding in a lie to Congress. There were enough serious charges that, if corroborated, would rise to the level of impeachable offenses. And, Cohen's testimony largely avoided involvement with Russia except for the lies about the Trump Tower Moscow project. While Cohen did not see collusion, he did indicate that Trump was aware of the meeting his son presided over between his campaign manager and his son-in-law and Russians to trade "dirt" on Hillary Clinton for sanctions relief. Cohen's testimony was damning as it was damaging with Republicans unable or unwilling to challenge it.
Cohen enunciated what we knew about Trump prior to his election and see every day in the news. Trump is incompetent, corrupt, racist and a despicable human being.
However Cohen's testimony will not change the political calculus for Republicans in Congress since 90% of the republican base supports Trump.
The remedy/correction can only come through the ballotbox in 2020.
1
Please everyone, do not donate money for an (oxymoronic) Trump library.
1
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?
Michael Cohen painted a most unflattering portrait of his former boss—and, unfortunately—the sitting president of the United States.
Whatever Richard Nixon did was, by comparison with what Cohen revealed about the inner workings of the Trump organization, an angelic choir. No. 45 was, Cohen told us, a coiling insatiable vipers’ nest of greed of an aggressive and acquisitive nature so out of the ordinary that the mind cannot compartmentalize it all.
It would appear, though, that the foundations of the Trump wealth owes much to the racism that he inherited from his father and later utilized as pere et fils violated open housing laws as early as the 1970’s. We have seen and heard of the president’s own views on race as he, in 2012, attempted to discredit—if not unseat—President Barack Obama. His mean insistence on the disproven charges against the Central Park Five continue as a leit motif for his racist itch. His “very fine people—on both sides—will be his lasting Charlottesville legacy.
However, far worse, was Cohen’s last warning: that if he is defeated in his re-election bid in 2020, Donald Trump will not go quietly. As we saw from the enraged growls and snarled and hisses from every Republican on Elijah Cummings’s committee, the Right will not bow to the people’s will.
Shelby Foote closes his epic history of the Civil War with this chapter title on Jefferson Davis: “Lucifer in Starlight.”
Donald Trump is our cross. How will we bear this burden? How can we?
Must we?
Playing to the lowest common denominator, Mr. Kristof and Congresswoman Tlaib would lead a lynch mob for Trump based on the unsubstantiated claims of a convicted liar. Michael Cohen says he worked willingly and eagerly for Donald Trump. But he never shows any indication that for someone who proudly describes himself as “the son of Holocaust victims,” he ever objected to Trump over his allegedly racist utterances.
Why didn’t he tell Trump at the time that a son of Holocaust victims would never tolerate working for a “racist, con man and a cheat”? Why would the “son of a Holocaust victim” lie, cheat, and connive to bilk financial institutions and dishonor his profession?
I can easily see how someone like Michael Cohen lost a sense of reality under the spell of an expert manipulator like Trump. Yes, Trump. Ask anyone (such as myself) who's been victimized by a master con man and they will tell you, just like Cohen did today, that is what Trump is.
Cohen's victimization doesn't excuse his admitted crimes. But how sad for all of us that Cohen, a convicted criminal who Trump's supporters in Congress and elsewhere disparage, today showed in his remorse more integrity than those Representatives who still support Trump have to date.
To all of you who still support the president, I implore you: It's not too late - Repent!
282
@Sachi G
List three crimes. Any crimes.
2
@Sachi G I used to work with teenagers who had broken free of cults. Over and over again I heard tales of coming under the spell of a leader who demanded complete loyalty and how easily they complied with every command even when it was illegal or unethical. This is more common than we believe and it happens to varying degree throughout society. Once they freed themselves of such tyranny they would experience a sense of disbelief that they had turned over so much of their will to such a man. Repentance is exactly the correct word to use for it means to turn around and come to your self. It's sad that so many people in this country have fallen under the spell of Donald Trump. Hopefully, in 2020 we'll all repent and rid ourselves of this menace and return to being a Constitutional Democracy where both parties actually decide to obey the law rather than bend the law to serve the man.
39
@Sachi G Fantastic comment and didn't Elijah Cummings offer the best argument for doing so after he showed enormous restraint throughout the hearings even offering Meadows a face saving olive branch despite the contemptible stunt.
22
Cohen gave highly credible, as well as highly riveting testimony about Trump, but perhaps the most compelling moment came when he turned the tables on his Republican interrogators by saying they were as morally compromised as he had been. For anyone who has been following the case, Cohen offered little that had not been known or, at least rumored about before. But the spectacle of seeing the Republicans on the subcommittee accusing Cohen of being liar, while ignoring the truth that coercion and deceit were always essential to the Trump brand, reveals something damning about them, too. They are now colluding with Trump in his crimes as much as Cohen once did, but with far more damaging effect.
The Accidental President
As New Yorkers we are not fooled, and were not fooled by Donald Trump, ever. We've seen enough con men, grifters and liars, it's part of growing up in New York City, you pick up antennae for these type of people in all their forms. But people in Ohio, Kentucky and all the other places that voted heavily for Trump , people who grew up far away from the big city scammers, were completely taken in. They made the first mistake of electing somebody who did not have the experience or knowledge to be the President of then United States, a man whose first fall back position is to lie, than lie some more. and now they compound that mistake with old fashioned American stubbornness, the reflexive, fall back position of all Americans to never admit a mistake, because the sin of all Americans is pride. So here we are in the year 2019, the most powerful country in the history of the world is being run by a bunch of con men from queens, with gangster mentalities.
2
Second most corrupt? Have you forgotten about Grant's or Harding's? In terms of bribes, Trump's doesn't come close.
1
All accurate points, of course. All this is more or less known, but the testimony before a Congressional committee applies the needed publicity about Mr. Trump's life-long malfeasance in every aspect of his life. Forget the faux "summit" in Vietnam. Another "photo-op" for Mr. Trump that occurs solely because Mr. Trump believes that these photo-ops will garner him the Nobel Peace Prize. The probability of that is zero, but Mr. Trump has one portion of his presidential version of the "The Apprentice" aimed solely at that objective. The grossly disgusting behavior of the Republican members of the Congressional committee is undigestible by anyone with a functioning brain.
Messrs. Jordan and Meadows two of the most despicable individuals imaginable, although their current misdeeds a shadow of the decades' worth of misdeeds from Mr. Trump and family.
1
What I don't understand is why every Republican is not in jail. Who's been protecting them?
1
Today House Republicans engaged in obstruction of justice. They did not address issues of substance, only attacked Cohen's veracity, but not Trump's.
House Republicans are not concerned with Cohen's lying, but rather that Cohen has stopped lying.
Now what? For those inclined to confirmation bias the Cohen testimony served its purpose. Pursuant to Rep. Tlaib's directive to "ITMF" (which has become a movement with its own go-fund-me page) I would assume the HR Dems have sufficient proof to go about impeachment proceedings. If successful in their attempt, the Senate has to convict with a two thirds supermajority. Anyone want to handicap that? Anyone want to opine on how that may play out in an election year? Shouldn't the Democratic Party take advantage of its opportunity to destroy the economy, gin up complete moral anarchy and send all the unwashed to political re-education camps?
1
Cohen merely stated what has become obvious to two-thirds of the American public over the past two years. The most telling aspect of his public testimony was not his description of Trump, not even the corroboration he provided, but the reaction of Republican senators on the committee. They did not once challenge any of the facts he provided; they simply claimed he shouldn't have been allowed to testify at all. As Pete Wilson's book so eloquently stated, "Everything Trump Touches Dies," and that includes the GOP.
1
I am not quite sure why so many writing and posting here and elsewhere express surprise, indignation or disappointment in Trump or the Republican party. They are getting everything they always wanted. Trump is bigly successful from their perspective. They have always wanted lower taxes, smaller government, more military spending, a conservative court, white male power (over brown people, women and their bodies), and on and on and on....
This is who they are and they couldn't be happier with what Trump is delivering. Some likely even prefer his vulgar, bullying style.
5
I thought that it was particularly chilling that Cohen reported that he would not walk with his wife or kids because he was afraid of what Trump and his henchmen might do. I cannot say that I blame him. Plainly, he was afraid for his life and the lives of his wife and children. Trump already threatens his "enemies" with physical, legal, financial and emotional harm and acts like a Mafia don. He could easily put a hit on Cohen and his family and there are just enough blindly-loyal cultists in Congress and the general population who would just shrug it off. After all, since Trump's good buddies Putin, Kim, Duterte and the Saudis do it, why not Trump?
2
As a New Yorker, I've known, and said, for decades that Trump is a crook. His first big deal, the renovation of the old Commodore Hotel next to Grand central Terminal, depended on a deputy mayor ramming unjustified zoning variances through the City Council. On his last day in office that deputy mayor signed the last document authorizing that; the next morning he went to work at the law firm that represented Trump, the firm headed by Roy M. Cohn, a completely crooked man, and Trump's mentor.
4
This is both sad, and hilarious.
Sad, because it took the nation so long to wake up to the threat of the statist progressivism that infects both parties. By the time it finally did, there were no Republicans or Democrats in party mainstreams who would defend Constitutional federalism, and primacy of individuals over the collective.
It took an outsider to start to move the needle; that's what Trump is doing. No one who voted for him had any illusions about his character: Does What It Says On The Can.
But he is rolling back the excesses of the statists and as a result he will be re-elected in 2020.
Hilarious, because a convicted Congressional perjurer has been called to testify at Congress by a bunch of cynical ideologues, at the initiative of THE chief Clinton cabal fixer, Lanny Davis - who could probably put both Clintons in jail for life if he told what he knows.
And the Democrats think that they are going to get points for doing this, even though it is clear that Cohen has actually added no new information to the existing mashup.
In fact, they are only confirming what everyone already knew. They will do and say anything, knowing that their lemmings will accept their lies at face value, and as the truth.
That's the difference. Trump supporters know he lies, frequently, and look to the Federal Record for the evidence of what this adminsitration has actually accomplished.
The Democratic resistence, actually BELIEVES the lies of the party elite.
Sad. And hilarious.
2
But it was Nixon who began the degradation of the Republican Party -- not with Watergate, but with his southern strategy, that is, overt and uninhibited racism. Watergate was just an additional means. And both were means to what? What did winning get them?
That is the crux. Criminality and bigotry of individuals is unfortunate and sad. But this criminality and racism has been systematic, and all for the purpose of selfish greed and hatred of other humans because they are different in some superficial way.
This disgrace goes way beyond Trump and his administration. It is at the heart of the Republican Party.
Greed and hatred; what a cause!
There may be time to repent. But time is running short.
2
As I watched the hearings I could only marvel at Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan constantly hitting on the argument that if Cohen lied before, how can we believe him now. Once a liar, etc.
We have a Liar-in-Chief sitting in the Oval Office, a man who has told by last count over 8,000 lies to the American people, to his family, and to his Republican cohorts. And this is the man they are staunchly defending?
For the two years that Republicans controlled the House there were zero investigations into serious issues that have affected our Democracy and our way of governing. Zero investigations. All to protect Donald Trump.
How despicable is that?
4
It may be impossible to know what the GOP members in the hearing actually believe. But their constituents, the people who voted for them and they need to stay in office have spoken. Defend Trump or else.
Tribalism? Sectarianism? Decades of FOX News and other right wing media outlets graving for ratings aka profits?
If not, then what?
Division. When we the people can't even agree to call a spade a spade anymore.
This is the greatest threat to the nation we've seen in generations..
3
While there was not much new in Cohen's testimony, he confirmed much of what has been said previously. Is it a surprise to anyone that Trump is a racist, a con man and a cheat - this has all been out in the open for some time. I found Cohen's closing statement particularly chilling when he said that if Trump loses the 2020 election that there WILL NOT be a peaceful transfer of power. All Congressmen, indeed all Americans, must consider this possibility when choosing to support Trump. While Cohen's statement does not validate his fear, the mere fact that he felt compelled to make the statement is cause for alarm. Trump's actions since nomination in vilifying the Press, in denigrating those who disagree with him, in unabashedly lying daily, and in his apparent admiration for many of the world's "strong men" would serve to support this fear. Except for the election of Lincoln, there has never been a time when the peaceful transfer of the presidency has been threatened. The price of democracy is vigilance.
3
I hope that 50 years from now the trump era will be seen in retrospect as horrific. People won't understand how any American could have voted for him.
1
It was interesting to watch the Republicans on the committee attack Michael Cohen's character, and not without reason. But were they not astute enough to realize that by painting it in the blackest possible terms, they raised the question of why then was he so close to trump for 10 years or so? Is trump such a poor judge of probity that he would use for the most sensitive and unpleasant sort of "fixing" such a morally destitute agent? Or was it precisely because that agent's lack of a moral compass was exactly what trump needed? So what does this say about trump himself?
2
Cohen also accused Trump of lying under oath. The 9 thousand false or misleading statements are damaging to Trump's character as a witness but rather besides the point. Trump's written testimony to Mueller stated he never received advanced notice of any WikiLeaks release. Cohen testified he was on a conference call when Roger Stone told Trump WikiLeaks was about to release an email dump. Even in written testimony, Trump is apparently incapable of telling the truth.
The argument about Cohen's credibility is moot. His story about the FEC violations is at least hypothetically corroborated by David Pecker and definitively corroborated by physical reimbursement. The evidence about WikiLeaks is going to be corroborated by Roger Stone's emails if not Roger Stone himself. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows better start looking for a new line of work. Why Republicans think defending Trump will play well politically is the definition of insanity. Ask Michael Cohen.
2
I can only hope that Cohens fate bestows the republicans who now protect trump.
1
GOP had its John Dean moment yesterday and failed miserably.
Any well paid attorney who has a corrupt and dishonest client like Nixon or Trump is going to lie and dissemble and obstruct justice to protect the client. Michael Cohen had to honor his ethical obligations to Trump and his organization when he first appeared before Congress and protect confidentiality at all cost. Once the Feds came knocking with hard evidence of lying and criminal behavior, Michael Cohen joined John Dean and had to violate his oath to protect Trump first. Jim Jordan knows all that and just showed us how GOP House members have become criminal enablers.
2
I, also, hope Democrats aren't gleeful; they can't afford to be. With Cohen's public testimony yesterday, Trump's presidency is in mortal danger, and Trump is likely to act increasingly out of desperation. Who knows what he will do?
It came out after Nixon's resignation that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had held clandestine meetings in civilian clothing at which they discussed what they would do if Nixon, to avoid impeachment, declared martial law and called out the military. Happily, they decided that such an order would be illegal and they would not obey it. I am hoping today's Joint Chiefs are also having meetings and reaching the same conclusion.
1
Did Michael Cohen actually say anything that people should be surprised to hear, assuming of course they haven't already heard it? The dyed-in-the-wool head in the sand Republican base, including the "hypocritically pure" evangelicals, didn't hear anything that they wouldn't dismiss as a lie of a guy going to jail. Unfortunately that testimony was emblematic of preaching to the choir that's heard the story a few times before.
1
Please do not forget that Trump evaded the draft during the Viet Nam war-Not for matters of conscience but simply for cowardice.
1
Mr Meadows using a woman of color today as a prop spoke many words. So many racist have told me some of their best friends are people of color? Thomas Jefferson had many children with Sally Henning the fact that she was his slave didn't mean too much to him. In the south many of the manor born were raised by black nannies only to grow up to fight to maintain slavery. Trump's brand of racism works with his base so calling Trump a racist is preaching to the choir. To call Trump a cheat means nothing to Trump's base. Trump conned his base into thinking he was a Republican so they could care less. Cohens testimony only told the world what most New Yonkers have known for years.
2
I didn’t have to work for Donald Trump for 29 years to know this!
I don’t know what to do with my roller coaster anger and disappointment in Trump supporters who voted for this unqualified and unethical man and walk around everyday as if this is all normal. This is not normal, America is definitely less great!
3
"The Republicans argued that we should not believe Cohen because he is a proven liar. But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump?"
Spot on.
2
What Mr. Cohen said was either well known or suspected about Trump by the people who voted for him in 2016. Many stories about his unethical business practices, potential affairs, etc. were published by the NYT, among others.
The real question for Mr. Kristof is why so many Americans were so totally disillusioned by the establishment of both parties that they were willing to accept such a deeply flawed person over all the other candidates.
This is nothing new. Trump is an enraged and enraging person. He is a bully. He lies. He cheats. He steals. He's a con artist. He should not have won the 2016 election. The GOP ought to have backed someone else for president. Failing that they have betrayed their own oaths of office for power, dishonesty, and to bully others. This is not democracy. This is government, one fiasco at a time. Had anyone but a GOP president done a quarter of what Trump has done the party would have been drawing up impeachment documents.
Then again, the voters are at fault too. People voted for a man who said what made them feel good. They voted in a man who was openly misogynistic, racist, against immigrants, against working with others. Elections have consequences. Poor government, a failing infrastructure, increasing income inequality and fear for the future are some of them.
I do not wish GOP followers well any longer. I'm tired of hearing from them how the only ones that count are rich corporations and individuals most of whom care solely for themselves and their bottom line. I'm tired of being left out of the prosperity. Trump was never going to change things for the better. He is a usurper and a danger to our country. I hope that Cohen's testimony has opened up some avenues to remove this corrupt president and administration.
3
@Socrates
Great comments Mr Socrates, I am always on your side-while far away-but, how much better is your country, really? I read 'The people's history of the US ', I am reading 'These truth, a history of the USA', and in between other books about your health care, your justice system, your immigration policies etc. So, get rid of this crook and get to work!!
That said, I am well aware of the fact that many other people, countries, do no better..., but saying that 'we are better than that' gives me a feeling like 'what is Socrates talking about'. But please, keep 'talking'!
2
I would love to believe that at some point, all Americans will realize that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. But I just took a sobering look at the Fox News web page. Of course, FOX portrays Cohen's testimony as a pack of lies and as a Democratic ploy to distract the public from Trump's great diplomatic moment (ahem?) in Viet Nam. And, of course, it's easier for me to believe that Trump created the spectacle of two leaders meeting to distract the public from Cohen's testimony (though I think the Democrats should be careful here). We'll have to see what happens in the polls but it's a sad to realize that we're a nation divided not as much by Trump as by which TV News we watch. And it will be even sadder to see what those TV companies (large corporations all) do to the progressive ideas coming out of the new field of Democratic candidates. Finding the truth in modern America is a work for Diogenes and his lamp.
1
There is remarkable loyalty among Trump supporters. He hasn't hypnotized or drugged them; he has validated their deepest hatreds and fears. The disruption Trump represents is a desire to derail social, scientific and moral progress, returning to a mythical past, when America "was" great. Michael Cohen's testimony doesn't simply endanger Trump, it undermines Trump supporters' views of themselves. As long as Trump stays true to his supporters insecurities, they will have his back.
2
I thought all of this was pretty clear before the election. trump's dealing with the workers of his hotels, how he ran the hotels and trump university was all I needed to confirm the headline.
Today's front pages register the outrage of Blue America at the whacko who is our President. It is otherwise for Red America.
Many, probably most, of those who elected Trump did so as a shriek against decades of neglect. Their concern is not program, but protest.
Imagine a middle finger somewhat taller than the Washington Monument.
Mainstream economic policy for 40 years, under both liberal and conservative administrations, shifted abroad production from industrial America, centered on the Midwest.
The Red Votes typically come from hollowed-out America. E.g. they come from small Midwestern cities whose former factories for fabrication are now museums, to show one what kind of production went on, back when production went on.
Trump has certainly played his role of outraging the smug prospering half of the US, which benefited from the shift of much economic activity abroad.
A minority of his supporters, probably, now find him detestable. But, the majority will stay with him, and will grow, so long as hollowed-out America continues to expand.
The key to eradicating such destructive alienation is the reconstruction of Red America. It will be expensive. But much cheaper than the alternative.
Oh please, enough with the Nixon analogies.
These are very different times. You gotta be kidding yourself, if you don't fully grasp just how different a place we are in, compared to what really sounds like the age of innocence now - that distant past of 45 years ago, when a single exposé in the Washington Post could bring down the presidency... There was also some scheming, and some degree of cynicism - but it sure sounds like people back then to a very large degree had some trust in their elected officials and their media. Nixon did not have a rabid cult-like base of followers. And there was no twitter and facebook either.
The American political class has truly lost its mind. The testimony of a two-bit self-confessed liar and "mobster" or mobster's sidekick is "devastating"? Decades from now, historians will continue to analyze it?
As for Trump's character, I have never seen so many earnest people shaking their heads and professing to be shocked, shocked at Cohen's testimony.
Oh, come on already. Enough with the pantomime. Trump's character was no secret when voters elected him President. For better or worse....
The real casualty of Cohen's testimony was what started it all -- the story about supposed "Russian collusion." That story is now as dead as door-nail. But no Democrat will admit it because that would raise questions about whether the whole investigation was a set-up from the beginning. (Was the FBI investigating one of its own dirty tricks?). Remember that Cohen's testimony is the fruit of a poisoned tree.
If Cohen is the best the House Democrats can do, then Trump will safely serve out his term.
1
@Ian Maitland Self-confessed lieing sidekick to whom? Think about it.
@Ian Maitland Self-confessed lying sidekick to whom? Think about it.
I am 21 years old and I did not live through Watergate, but I do not think today's hearing bears much resemblance. Yes, in both cases the president committed a crime.
But in 1974 Fox News did not exist to spin each and every despicable act committed by the President into "fake news." The republican party was not terrified of the ramifications of pushing back against the president, who at the time did not have the power of Twitter to destroy anybody in his way. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Nixon felt somewhat constrained simply because of the fact that he knew what the law was and cared to a degree. Trump, on the other hand, came into this world getting everything and anything he wanted whenever he wanted it, and however he wanted it... and that will never change. He knows NO laws and cares about nobody but himself.
Today changes nothing, and I am terrified. Trump supporters will only dig in and say that Michael Cohen can't be trusted. As much as I hate Trump, he was right about one thing. He could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and kill somebody without losing any voters.
It seems quite obvious that the Republicans on the Oversight Committee didn't want Michael Cohen to testify today. But what is less obvious is why a man who has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress would lie again. That was the entirety of the Republican game plan. Each time they called him a liar, Cohen simply again was provided his opportunity to mea culpa. He was convincing.
As was pointed out, he had nothing to gain -- I mean, really, nothing.
The Republicans looked foolish. They frequently didn't make any sense and either deliberately misheard or misinterpreted the testimony or simply didn't understand it.
Clay Higgins (R-LA) seemed particularly inept -- seeming unable to comprehend that the documents Cohen referred to had already been confiscated by the FBI AND returned to Cohen.
Meanwhile, the new guard of the Democratic Party -- mostly women -- carefully prefaced their comments and questions and sounded like seasoned veterans.
Here in Chicago, we just had our mayoral election yesterday and the race comes down to two African-American women; the voters of Chicago turned their back on the establishment (in the form of yet another Daley). We'll have our run-off in about a month.
While the antics of the last three years have been mind-numbing in terms of embarrassing moments, the tide is turning. I have hope for the future.
The Trump presidency is a criminal conspiracy.
Is there any other conclusion that can be reached? His business life before this had aspects of an on-going criminal conspiracy, too, with a ready willingness, even eagerness, to submit false claims to banks to obtain loans and all of it built on a foundation of falsely claimed "billions" in assets Trump and company fed to a compliant, largely unquestioning media.
How did Trump get away with inflating his net worth so consistently and spectacularly? For several decades he was a New York story "too good to check" and, besides, it is a fact that many extremely wealthy would have difficulty providing exact information about how much money and assets they control.
As Trump climbed upward based on false claims, one thing should have stood out. When a tall building goes up and is sold, either entirely or as condos, it no longer counts as an asset of the company putting it up. It's gone. The assets from the sale, if any, are the only contributors to net worth.
In short, the media bought the con, NBC spread the con far and wide with the television show, Trump pumped Trump, the brand, so relentlessly that a lie repeated 10,000 times started to look like the truth. Here we are, in a national mess of epic proportions.
The fault, in part, is in the way we pick nominees for president and in the Electoral College system allowing someone who did not get a majority vote to be "elected". Until things are changed, further disaster awaits.
2
I found incredibly odd that a convicted felon and a liar could tell a US Representative that he did for 10 years the same thing he is doing: defending Trump and, warning all "defenders" of the consequences. It was more striking the Cohen was talking the truth, there will be more and more indictments in the Trump circle.
But it means nothing because the president is still in office and the law does not apply to him.
Kristof your preaching to the Choir. The problem is that almost half of America does not care that those three check boxes are checked.
1
That title says it all. Nixon was actually competent at his job...and actually WAS self made.
1
As a person who believes Trump is bad for America, I can't help but thinking that while everything his former lawyer said is true, it makes no difference in our lives and that of the President. His base elected him, sees no evil and hears no evil. He will serve out his term, sadly, lose the next election, get his US stamp, as Nixon did, and brag for the rest of his pitiful life that he was the President of the US.
1
I basically agree with Cohen. He pretty much seals up what a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence that backs him up.
1
The other difference between Nixon and Trump, is that Nixon didn't have a cult following, propaganda network, or complaint Republican Party. It doesn't matter how many crimes Trump committed. There is simply no way Senate Republicans would vote to convict. This means that 2020 will be a test of whether we are truly a republic or a dictatorship...
1
Facing serious jail time, Michael Cohen and other presidential operatives have revealed clandestine—and sometimes allegedly unlawful—behavior by Mr. Trump and his inner circle. The “loosened tongues” of Michael Cohen before a Congressional Committee, glaring media lights and the threat of years in prison, bring to mind an excerpt from the Bible:
“… every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess…”
If Michael Cohen, General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, et al, are all liars of shady character, then Mr. Trump’s vetting system for his administration has been a dangerously porous filter. Lord help us, if this irresponsible, indeed reckless, screening extends into foreign policy and Mr. Trump’s interactions with heads of state.
1
And he is the President.
He didn’t do that by himself. He won the Electoral College by getting enough white men and women to vote for him.
Most will vote for him again. And what does that say?
We can only hope that Republicans in Congress and those around Trump will finally realize that the Emperor has no clothes. The alternative is very scary.
As a young adult during Watergate, I watched congressional hearings with a sense of betrayal of everything I had been taught about respect for the Office of the President and its occupant. The temptation to abuse the powers of Office to commit and cover up crimes extended to the Office of the Vice-President around the same time with the resignation of Spiro Agnew on crimes unrelated to Watergate. If nothing else, Watergate demonstrated Congress was capable of doing its job, courageous individuals in law enforcement did not totally break under Executive pressures to obstruct Justice. Watergate ignited my armchair interest in politics, congressional legislation and oversight duties, Executive Branch policies, and keeping informed about candidates for elected office. I had not been a Nixon supporter, but prior to Watergate I formed emotional attachments to candidates, something I stopped post-Watergate. I had been disappointed in thinking an oath to preserve and defend the Constitution was enough. I doubled down on my acceptance of the Constitution and democratic values despite the individuals who had betrayed them.
It was a few years after Watergate when I first heard of Donald Trump. Over decades of press, Donald Trump struck me as a conman, a racist, a cheat, and a liar. I viewed, and still view, Trump supporters as naive and as green as I had been in my early twenties, forgetting greater democratic principles are worth fighting for, not a flawed individual.
So the entire investigation was authorized under the dubious pretense that Trump was a Russian asset. Seems clear now that the best argument for impeachment is Stormy Daniels. Even if the payments could be construed as technical violations of campaign finance rules, who cares? It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Dems will of course have to go after impeachment, and this one will make them look even worse than the Kavanaugh debacle. This is all great news for the American people since we get to enjoy six more years of this Trumpian economy. God bless America!
21
@Bill I think you meant to say the Obama economy, but whatever. Regarding the justification for impeachment, recall that Bill Clinton's impeachment was an offshoot of the special prosecutor's Whitewater investigation. Cohen's testimony might have been shocking, but not surprising to the majority of the American people, but the potential for real political and legal damage will be coming from Mueller and the SDNY.
68
@Bill
Seems you are purposefully oversimplifying it. The investigation was authorized to look into possible coordination and collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. His campaign manager and NSA have both been found to have had contact with Russian officials during the campaign and/or the transition. In addition the Mueller Report hasn't even been released yet. We need to see exactly what the findings of the Special Council are before we can accurately judge the presidents involvement. Your personal calculus seems to be: Economy GOOD I look other way. Economy BAD I find excuse blame Democrats vote trump anyway.
100
@Sean
Having contact with someone is not illegal. I'm sure no one was being an angel, but if all you have is contact, that's awfully weak. Pretty obvious someone in Russia had to have been contacted on Hillary's behalf to get that dossier going, yet that doesn't seem to bother liberals.
Yes, we'll wait for Mueller's report and see what it says, but we're already seeing liberals do what's known as "moving the goal posts" so obviously they don't think the report will have the juice we were promised (and none of us who actually think for a living believed would be delivered upon).
You're in no position to judge my personal calculus. I hated Trump when he started, but I change my opinions when the circumstances so require. Fact is liberals have become more crazy than the conservatives, and Trump has performed incredibly well particularly in light of expectations (Krugman said the economy would drop like a stone and never recover...in fact economy's showing growth they said was not possible, we've had no new wars, and at least we're talking with NK rather than threatening to blow each other up...maybe that'll resume now but I doubt it).
3
This is what stood out to me after watching the heinous faux attacks by the disingenuous likes of Jordan and Meadows.
“I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”
Every POTUS could fit Cohen's description.
I'm yet to see concrete evidence Trump committed a crime.
I don’t think much of Trump, but having to rely on a man convicted of lying and who is scrambling to reduce his prison time to get “facts” is something of a fool’s errand.
What you're talking about Nick is the moral hazard message society is spewing.
You ended your piece with this statement by Cohen. You wrote: "And I hope the Republicans listened when Cohen told one of his G.O.P. interrogators: “I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.” He added: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”"
Well Michael, join the legions of innocents from the kids on the border to the low wage federal contract workers.
I think you need to remember that we really can't lay this all on the Donald. There are a lot folks like those local councilmen, preachers, businessmen, farmers, corporate executives, retirees, oligarchs, etc. (Senators and congressmen, too) who are backing Trump blindly and essentially expanding and normalizing corruptions.
When you cheat and society lets you get away with it - the GOP is lobbying for expansion of the ambiguity - you got to know that others will be tempted.
What those on the right have to realize is they are promoting and conjuring a darkness as our inevitable future.
What is sad and scary is the elites ushering in this future, believe that with today's unique technology, they will be able to make good on the power grab underway.
So while Cohen, Manafort, Gates, etc. are being prosecuted, the key cheat in this play can not be allowed to skate. Time is running out for those who enable him.
Can we ever get the Democrats past attempting to stage their coup to overthrow President Trump and get on to running the country. Perhaps legislation increasing the inheritance tax. Perhaps legislation outlawing plastics that contaminate the oceans. Perhaps legislation increasing subsidies for solar energy to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps legislation to create single payor health insurance for all Americans. Or maybe legislation decreasing the annual deficit that approaches $1.5 Trillion Dollars.
Trump won the presidency - get over it. Democrats won the House - now legislate instead of wasting time on hearings that might embarrass Mrs. Trump, but nobody else cares about.
1
It is human nature, once you have devoted yourself to a person or a cause - any person or any cause - to resist self reflection or follow up assessment to determine whether your chosen person or cause is, after all, worthy of your devotion.
This phenomenon explains the Republican members' lack of real questioning of Mr. Cohen, their defense of Trump no matter what, and their angry, overwrought, tantrum-like histrionics reminiscent of the Kavanaugh performance in his hearings.
We have heard from the beginning how GOP members expressed "private concerns" telling the president "don't do [fill in the blank]" etc. They KNOW who Trump is, but they've gotten in so deep they can't find a way to extricate themselves from the black hole he is, and they KNOW they themselves are complicit in wrongdoing (whether or not it is, technically, illegal).
Those of you at The Times who remember hot metal production will appreciate that the mat that made the press plate for the front page of he Final edition of the Washington Post, announcing the resignation of President Nixon, is framed above my desk. Mom had the mat mounted on board and varnished down to the appearance of brown chair leather, in the same fashion as the framed mats of front pages of her papers on historic occasions. Those of you who have been to the National Press Club in Washington, would recognize the medium.
I make no apologies. I am an Eisenhower/Nixon Republican. I will not claim the Nixon championed the causes, but he was realist, a politician, who guided the Clean Air Act, The Clean Water Act, and Affirmative Action through Congress so that they emerged in a form that he could sign onto.
If, as a proud Republican, such as we were in those days, I could only shake my head at Mr. Nixon's egregious transgressions, I will have no part of the unguided, unprincipled carryings on of the current administration or the voices defending it in Congress.
Alas, I am a man without a party these days.
Democrats are not gleeful- there is no joy to be had when the precious institutions of Democratic Government are under assault.Every assault on the free press and on the impartiality of the Justice System is a body blow to the constitutional basis of our government.Those with a sense of history realize that we have fought over the years for our values.We grieve that American values are being disrespected by Trump but more than that we are dismayed that the Republican Party supports the lying and grab for executive power which is antithetical to American governance.
1
It's remarkable that there has been so much coverage, punditry, opinions, and vitriol surrounding this event and the events that lead up to the Trump Presidency. There is nothing stunning about the Trump candidacy, presidency, or political fallout, that has not been consistent with the machinations of Washington's political theater. While the public salivate and lambaste each other over their contempt for the President, or in their defense of the administration, society is wound up like a timepiece placed strategically on the detonator of an explosive. Michael Cohen was a lawyer for Donald Trump and he knew exactly who he was working for. Donald trump's name is no stranger to controversy or malfeasance and Cohen was an insider just like any other crony in the corporate world. This comparison to Nixon, Watergate, John Dean and the past constitutional/congressional melodramas that dragged a nation through the bowels of malfeasance is just another piece written in the political climate of confusion and distraction. Trump has never been, and never will be even a marginal paradigm of righteousness and truth. But his detractors are no better than he is when they have the audacity to use racism, malfeasance, and misogyny as weapons against him when they are hypocrites of the highest order. It's election season again, and all the necessities of the citizenry will be put on perpetual hold while elitists fight each other for power. The usual suspects in their usual roles.
Looking over the long arch of the life of Donald J Trump it is patently and sadly obvious that most of what and whom he touches gets sullied, if not overtly destroyed. Bad enough he has done this to his own wives, children and business associates, whom at least had a choice to make their own bad decisions. But the man is now President, really to only 35-40 percent of Americans and the rest of us are held hostage to this nightmare with no immediate recourse. It is also obvious the GOP is willfully complicit in this ride all the way to the bottom and must be held to account in November 2020. This is what democracy looks like.
I grew up near New York and used to dislike Mr. Trump. He was brash and tasteless. You know-I am starting to like the guy. He gets things done. Clinton and Obama-two presidents I liked gave away the store to the North Koreans-Trump has actually done something. Stay healthy Mr. President as I will vote for you in 2020. You are a better choice than the socialists. I mean free health care and tuition, and I can choose not to work, what could possibly malfunction here? All great nations follow that mantra. A no brainer. But throw in a free Range Rover and I will consider voting for the Socialists.
1
Cohen’s testimony quoted here amounts to a sustained smear, defamatory innuendoes, with malice, and outright lies which were effectively challenged by Republican members of the Cummings Committee. We have yet to see evidence of an impeachable offense, We still have no Mueller Report. Proof of Trump’s political corruption remains to be seen. To whip up lynch mob attitudes for political reasons is unethical journalism no matter how politically liberal the source.
All the negative talk about Trump accomplishes little. What is the point? Even if he is all the awful things that Cohen and all the commentators on this page say he is, so what? I would guess that the presidency of Trump directly affects very few of us. The economy is good, there are no major wars and the incidence of violent crime is down. We should get on with our lives and replace him in two years.
Cohen has already admitted to lying to Congress. His reputation is in shreds His credibility is already impeached. Any testimony he gives is highly suspect. He has a check from Trump and claims it’s hush money. The Stormy Daniels accusation went nowhere and both her and her attorney face legal reparations that will keep her on the strip club circuit into her 90’s. The Democrats got there show but it pales in comparison to the Watergate hearings. Mueller still has yet to put his case before the People!
1
@George,
There's a reason Trump called Cohen a "rat" and not a liar. Think about it. You're not a snitch if you're simply lying about what other people did.
1
The really frightening thing that Cohen said, at some point in his testimony, is that if Trump loses in 2020, any handoff or transition to the successful candidate will be difficult, drawn out, blocked, and resisted. In other words, Cohen confirmed Bill Maher's great fear that Trump won't leave in 2020 or even in 2024.
May god, goddess, or the fates have mercy on us.
1
The Republicans have made clear that they will defend Trump to the bitter end. Their political base, and thus their grasp on power, depends on this. One can only hope that their base is shrinking due to these outrages. Not real sure about that.
2
@Yo, with the way things are going. Mr Trump and his family may not want to run reelection. To date, a lot of evidence has been collected, by Mr Mueller and SDNY, of wrongdoing. Mr Trump could conceivably hide behind the President cannot be indicted excuse for as long as he is President but the long arms of law will catch up, sooner rather than later. Depends on how much the citizens are willing to go through the wringer with "Trump universe" which includes republicans who have either been bullied by him by strongman tactics or have willingly drunk Trump cult Kool Aid.
1
The top portion of the column is accurate. Trump is a dirty cheat who was nominated to be president because he was a popular celebrity who had a talent for unnerving his opponents and a knack for being more down and dirty than they were . He won the presidency because the Democrats insisted on nominating a person who should have been indicted. That was covered up on the assumption that Clinton was going to be elected. This whole Russia owns Trump story has been walked back to nothing. As Trump merrily marchs the country into a major confrontation with Russia. Of course the Democratic scolds, Pelosi and Schumer, call any effort to deal with Russia treason. Cohen has pointed out the dark place the country went to when Trump was elected. Perhaps the Dems will come up with something that will return the country to the civility of Obama up until the Libya intervention.
The really sad part is that trump perfectly represents his voters in every respect, and his voters and the GOP hold trump up as the American ideal and totally support him.
6
“People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
That's my concern. Hopefully Cohen's public testimony, and the image of House Republicans refusing to take it seriously, will be the first step to an earnest public re-evaluation and discussion. We desperately need to prepare a path for our fellow citizens to be open to the truth about the Trump administration, while still saving face.
1
Even if only 50% of the Cohen's words are true, Trump is not fit for the president. He belong's in prison. And we haven't even seen his tax return.
7
Mr. Trump represents a greater threat to our democracy than any mobster - mobsters are at least acknowledged as being on the wrong side of the law.
President Trump is a prime example of the corrupting power of great wealth. He has shrewdly gamed the loopholes in the law, and demonstrated how the cost of getting caught cheating the system is far outweighed by the financial benefits one receives, provided you have the right lawyers and enough money to pay people off and settle lawsuits.
Michael Cohen said Trump wasn't joking when he remarked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. For anyone wondering how that could be, "The Jinx" about Robert Durst is an excellent primer on how it is possible to avoid playing by the rules and get away with murder (literally) when you are extremely wealthy. It shows how willing people are to ignore bad behavior when they stand to financially benefit, and how gov't resources are often not up to the task of taking on the private resources employed by the very wealthy to defend themselves.
Paul Volker has written that the biggest threat to our democracy is that we are in danger of becoming a plutocracy. The Republican party, who believe that nothing should stand in the way of anyone's accumulation of wealth stand by our President because he has shown that it is possible to get elected despite unlimited manifestations of greed and self-dealing that where heretofore considered deal breakers for elected office.
6
The one thing that came through loud and clear yesterday is that country has such a long way to go when it comes to race and acceptance and inclusiveness. From black people being used as props to the president's own descriptions and attitudes and the members not communicating or being even capable of talking about race to one another it is clear that this original sin is at the heart of America's problem. But don't look for a leader on the horizon to fix this problem. There does not seem to be one.
4
Trump didn’t run on honesty or integrity. He didn’t run on commitment, respect, courage or compassion. He lowered the bar and ran as himself. Is anyone really surprised at Cohen’s revelations? Of course not. Which is why, for Trump supporters, Cohen’s testimony only confirms what they already knew, and already accepted. In fact for some of his most ardent fans, it only makes Trump more authentic.
3
The Republican attacks on Cohen (while defending the president, who is in every way guilty of the charges they throw at Cohen) speak of a desire to maintain control at all costs.
Control by men, control by whites, control by "Christians" - it all comes down to their unwillingness to share power in this democracy with persons of color, with women, with persons coming from other faith backgrounds, etc.
They say they are not racist, misogynistic, intolerant. However, their every word and action speak of a deep-seated fear of losing control, and a deep-seated belief that THEY are better, more qualified, "chosen" by "God" to be in charge.
I suspect it runs so deep they are not aware of it consciously, but they are cornered animals fighting for survival. What they want to survive is a world that cannot continue.
9
It's a good thing that Cohen had corroborating evidence because the memory is a tricky thing. For instance, the author thinks that he watched John Dean on a 'flickering black and white television'. It was 1973 and he still had a black and white television? Seriously? And why was it 'flickering'? Yamhill is just 30 miles outside of Portland. Did the signal degrade that much in the five seconds it took for the signal to travel there? So like I say, the memory is a tricky thing.
@Richard Mclaughlin I still had a black and white television in 1980, and my home was just a few miles from all of the local stations, yet sometimes the reception was terrible. That was, indeed, what television was like for most people during that time.
8
@J. Halbrooks I grew up in Chicago. We had a black and white TV until 1985. My family had more important things to spend money on
Hopefully this hearing can be a turning point. As Elijah Cummings stated, a return to normal. Wouldn't that be nice.
Profiles in Cravenness.
The Republicans do not care about law or the Constitution. They care about one thing and one thing only: keeping their jobs. They are the tragic but inevitable outcome of extreme partisan gerrymandering. In order to keep their jobs they shape grotesque, distorted arguments because they are the product of congressional districts drawn in grotesque, distorted shapes.
None of this is normal.
6
@A Nobody
Profiles in Outrage
I know that I am talking to the choir, but when Republicans say that Cohen should not be trusted because he lied previously they should keep in mind that he lied at the behest of Trump, the man Republicans are trying to protect. I wish I could state this squarely to a Trump protector on the hill.
6
By far, the most illuminating message for our democracy as it moves forward from this most recent and regrettable episode was delivered by Elijah Cummings in his closing remarks. Every American should hear those remarks and attempt to live by them since they represent what is best about us, not what is worst. Thank you, Chairman Cummings!
8
The saddest part of this whole thing for me is this public display of more 'questionable actions by the U.S. President' and the 'shoot the messenger' tactics of the republicans on the House committee.
But regardless of how hard the House Republicans try to act as the president's 'defense lawyers' to discredit Mr. Cohen's testimony I think that many people in the country will still view Mr. Trump as an unreliable source for the truth.
Hopefully, this is the first of many hearing with further testimonies coroborating Cohens testimony. Let's hear it all.
1
I do not find credible, without real supporting proof, anything someone says who is under the thumb of a prosecutor. He might be telling the truth, of course, but, prosecutors use prison as leverage to force people to say what they want, and that automatically makes it very suspect. Cohen's sanctimonious at the hearing was also laughable.
Trump haters will believe anything bad about him and many of his supporters, the opposite. But, reasonable people will wait and see if there is anything real.
We should not have special prosecutors whose real goal seems to be taking down a president. That is what seemed to happen with both Judge Starr and now with Mueller. Claims about Trump's obstruction (Comey could be fired at will) and supposed campaign violations about women who it appears blackmailed Trump (that's what it is), seem meritless to me. I hope they release the Mueller report. If we do not have transparency, we have nothing. If there is something real, I can change my mind.
The hate, of course, Trump brought on himself in order to get elected. But, it doesn't justify the "resistance" or what sure looks like a "dark state." We need a non-partisan criminal process. I know that's wishful thinking, but it is what should be. It seemed we were getting better for a long time, but now, it seems like many people care little about the country and only about those with whom they identify.
4
Admirable, but you seem to be laboring under the assumption that the SC investigation is inherently partisan, even though it was initiated by a republican and is run by a republican.
Cohen had nothing to gain or lose by testifying. This was not a trial, no quid pro quo. Is he a despicable person? Absolutely.
Is his former boss? Without a doubt.
We are doomed. This takes to long. The damage is done. America fades unless we move, why don’t we move? We are under attack!
1
I know Trump’s grades and SAT scores are a trivial matter, but now that we know he fears their disclosure, I hope the Dems subpoena them.
Trump for years declared Obama's birth certificate a fake — even when President Obama produced it. Is it not reasonable to question whether Trump is a college grad and a Wharton grad — unless we see those records?
What is Trump hiding in those academic records? More bone spurs?
13
He’s probably hiding the effects of dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder, which may have resulted in poor grades and oppositional behavior if they went undiagnosed or untreated all of his life. He clearly has an issue with reading and numbers. He needs pictures and graphic charts to explain things. He is reportedly not able focus for more than a few minutes in meetings, and even when he talks off the cuff, his mind jumps from topic to topic in a haphazard way. It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump could have become a different person had he received treatment at an early age, but I suspect his father refused to acknowledge that his favorite son had a problem. The only way he did deal with it was by throwing him in a military school. So I think maybe the grades might tell an interesting story that he doesn’t want anyone to know.
5
@WestHartfordguy trump is anything but honest and transparent. Yet his followers don’t care. They fell for his infomercial. Being a TV personality and a hog for media attention, Trump managed to portray himself falsely as a smart businessman when documents reveal he inflated his numbers to sell and deflated his numbers to reduce taxes, consistently for decades. He is the worst kind of businessman who gives a bad name to entrepreneurship and capitalism. That he could get away for so many years just shows our system is rigged in favor of white rich folks, the government is willing to turn their heads away and let the wealthy corporations not pay a dime in taxes but it’s ok that our government and lawmakers squeeze out every single penny from the middle class and the lower classes who carry the burden of our entire economy on their backs. For some of these folks doing 2-3 jobs to make ends meet is normal.
1
@Frau Greta
Trump more than likely has a bad case of A.D.D.
I am not an expert however, but his behavior, spelling problems, grammar problems reveal the possibility.
Cohen's testimony today helped me see the facts the real news that this and other beacons of freedom now describe. While Mueller methodically turned over the slimiest rocks tracking Putin, he wisely engaged other US Attorneys as the evidence of Trump's organized criminal network became clear. Whatever we don't know about Russia yet, we will know more soon, yet the domestic crimes and interlocking lies and conspiracies of the Trump Empire now come into focus. Mr. Cohen has confirmed that we have struck the iceberg. Can we now cooperate to orderly disembark with the least loss of national integrity and institutional wounding? By admitting Trumptanic will be sunk we may survive. Will the GOP condemn their constituents keeping them locked in darkness below decks, insisting there is no danger? Our duty is to save us all by minimizing our loss of hope and faith in America. Republicans may be hoping that their empowered Court will protect them should we "steerage" expect national attention and redress to fix our ancient yet deeply flawed and injured Constitution. But their 5 men cannot save the Republic. They haven't the imagination nor the integrity and have been, recently, preventing critical safety enhancements. If every member of Congress took 5 minutes this morning to face themselves in a mirror and recite their still echoing, sacred oaths could they then lead us to safety? Are we as brave as those men and women 100 years ago facing fog and the freezing sea?
3
Nixon-era Republicans were likewise not nearly as bad as Trump-era Republicans who have assumed Cohen's role as fixer and thrown their beloved Constitution under the bus.
I, too, remember as a teenager watching Watergate unfold but there are three critical differences to what's happening now. First, unlike Trump-era Republicans who have assumed Cohen's role as fixer and thrown their beloved Constitution under the bus, most Nixon-era Republicans courageously stood up to Nixon. Second, unlike today, Nixon-era news sources were uniformly trustworthy and not beholden to corporate interests. Third, in the good 'ol Nixon days, attention spans spanned more than a twitter feed.
9
President Trump is by far the biggest crook America has ever seen. That the mainstream media are complicit in this is to their everlasting shame. It's well past time to elect an honest (well, almost because all politicians lie) person with personal integrity as America's leader. Unfortunately, the damage is done and the world is worse for it.
6
@dbsweden, the sad part is that while investigating trump they might find other individuals who might have gotten away with similar behavior. Some of those might be people you like or admire?
1
Mr. Kristof’s point will be repeated by writers forever but I’ll go further; because of Donald Trump and his administration Richard Nixon will get redemption.
1
This time the Party will fall as well, and possibly the Court it has corrupted, as never before.
4
Hearing Michael Cohen testify reminded me of all the people like him that I knew when I was growing up in New York, people in my family and others, who were considered ordinary and normal, but they were crooks and liars and thieves who tried to get away with whatever they could.
It made me sick to listen to Cohen. Trump is no doubt even worse. They give New Yorkers a bad name. I'm disgusted to hear them talk the way they do.... I left home as soon as I possibly could to get away from people like that...
6
Nothing Cohen said was new, except for this chilling statement in his closing remarks: "If Trump loses in 2020 there will be no peaceful transition of power".
Here we go.
17
The behavior of the Republican members of the Committee is unsustainable. You can get away with that sort of thing, like what occurred during the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, if there are no more witnesses and no follow up. But Michael Cohen's testimony is just the beginning. What the Republican members of Congress, particularly the Committee members, should attempt to do is educate their constituents and lead rather than follow.
7
The stories today of Trump's racism in Cohen's testimony were very distressing to hear. Trump has had a longtime reputation for denying housing to minorities in New York, no one will ever forget how he responded to the protests in Charlottesville or the outright lies for years about Obama not being born in Hawaii.
The response of the Republicans today in not questioning Cohen about President Trump's behavior in so many things including apparently breaking the campaign finance laws that were detailed in Michael Cohen's opening presentation is another strong wakeup call. Along with the differences in valuing the president's real estate for tax purposes, the buying at auction of a $60,000 self portrait paid for by his foundation, and the call from Roger Stone about the Russian Wikileaks hack.
There are so many questions that still need to be answered from today's revelations from Cohen.
9
The hearing today revealed as much about the Republican Party as Mr. Cohen revealed about Trump. Their near total unanimity in refusing to address any of the issues Cohen raised about Trump makes them fully complicit.
It's no longer just reluctance to confront the reality of Trump, They are running active interference for him. And no wonder.
Donald Trump could not have become the leader the party has chosen to fall in lockstep with if they hadn't been cultivating the vices Trump embodies so effectively for decades.
Charles P. Pierce summed it up. The rot began under Reagan, and this is the long night for the GOP that follows his "morning in America".
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a26558985/republicans-michael-cohen-hearing-disgrace-trump/
13
Whether Trump is worse than Nixon is a meaningless comparison. Nixon prolonged a war in which tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese died needlessly. Trump hasn't done that. It is unclear how destructive Trump's economic, environmental, and foreign policies will be over the long run. In many ways, Nixon paved the way for Trump. Both will be remembered for putting themselves and their party ahead of country.
7
Cohen's testimony confirms that Donald Trump ran for president as a way of promoting his brand and never expected to win. That of course explains why he would think he could shrug off his tax returns and take no steps to remove conflicts of interest. After a losing bid, they wouldn't matter.
So this nightmare that we're living through is a big, cruel joke of history. It leaves me with conflicting feelings: that a nation of high aspirations deserves better, and that a nation of collapsing standards deserves a bit of this as well.
16
The comparison to Nixon is apt in some ways but wildly wrong in others. Nixon, for all his flaws, was a politician first and an accomplished one. He signed and put into law the Clean Air Act, established the EPA, and opened talks for establishing better relations with China. In this regard Nixon is the polar opposite of DJT, who is dismantling, or trying to dismantle, every move forward the USA has made in the past 70 years. The similarities are that Nixon, like DJT, demanded loyalty, thought he had unlimited power, and was racist. For Nixon of course there's Watergate, which compared to DJT's daily grifting, lying, felonious acts, tax cheating, undermining of bedrock institutions like the FBI and the DOJ, and the destroying of long held alliances throughout the world, makes Nixon's crimes look like stealing someone's paper from their front yard. For his crimes Nixon resigned in order to avoid impeachment. Does anyone really think that DJT even acknowledges his misdeeds? That even if impeached he would actually leave office? We all thought at the time that Nixon was like an Imperial President. Now we actually have one.
19
There are obvious parallels between John Dean's testimony and Michael Cohen's. They both served as attorneys for the President and they were both caught up in their President's wrongdoing. But the differences are striking and important.
Dean testified before Congress like a lawyer, with little emotion and great attention to detail. Cohen's emotion was palpable and he wasn't particularly lawyerly in his description of the facts. Dean revealed the smoking gun -- Nixon's private tapes. Cohen admitted ignorance on many of the matters that counted most.
I think it's relevant that Dean attended one of the best law schools in the country while Cohen attended part time at one of the worst, sanctioned for accepting practically anyone who could pay the tuition. All indications to me are that Dean was a professional and Cohen is a hack.
When a lawyer testifies regarding legal matters, we should expect a degree of professionalism that bolsters credibility. Dean's testimony sunk Nixon because he revealed those incriminating tapes -- there was no credibility question to debate. Cohen's testimony did not measure up and will not likely bring Trump to justice.
5
@michjas Butterworth revealed the tapes, not Dean.
The comparisons with Watergate are apt. Nixon cover up lead Republicans to Turn in him. Now even cancelled checks paying for hush money payments will turn Republican Support.
The executive could do anything including blatantly illegal power. Trumps support among Republican funders nor base has not began to erode. We are much closer to dictatorship now than in Watergate 51 years ago.
7
Nicholas, I live only a few miles west from where you grew up. I landed here in 1976 having been born in Brooklyn , NY and grown up in Greenwich, CT. I recall my wife (to be) and I were in Jamaica when the news of Nixon's resignation broke.
I seriously doubt we will see El Trumpo resign as Nixon wisely chose to do. Today we see a lifetime of criminal activity on the part of the man who literally stole the presidency. The criminality of course follows in his fathers footsteps.
I suspect the question of whether or not a president may be indicted will land before the Supreme Court soon enough. Given how Trumpo has dumped on Chief Justice John Roberts one might surmise that the DOJ's policy opinion may be on shaky ground. I'd hate to see the ongoing drama end in a simple impeachment. As with Manafort and Stone, an effective life sentence in prison would perhpas be a lenient sentence for flagrant crimes against humanity.
10
Cohen said nothing democrats and decent republicans didn't already suspect. Even so, it remains chilling to see how low this GOP congress is prepared to go in defense of the mistake called trump.
23
Today's hearing was the competition of two groups:
The "Truth seekers" who held court that while Cohen had lied, they worked to verify and expand upon the facts brought forward and the important insight shared by the testimony today. They were helped by Cohen's exhibits, including the possible "smoking gun" check and related exhibits.
The other group, were "Soul Searchers" who never did find their souls. They found mirrors to reflect how well they could repeat items that said a lot but meant nothing. They found exhibits that were sordid, found entries to the record that were redundant or misleading, and they showcased the urgent need to ward off primary opponents who are more devoted to the cult of greed, ignorance and incompetence that is the "brand" of their efforts.
Chairman Cummings had one of the most eloquent messages ever in his closing remarks, and added even more wisdom in his discussions afterwards.
I hope the lost souls reflect on the Chariman's comments, and the torrent of action coming as a result of the hearing today. They will realize, hopefully, that the expending of energy to defend the indefensible is quixotic at best, and a tragedy at worst. The lost souls at times seem to realize they are in quicksand, and the rope that would rescue them is the truth but they chose to keep sinking into the quagmire. Let us all hope they come to their "light bulb" moment and grab the truth, as it will help them find their lost souls as well.
7
I read every Watergate book I could get my hands on back in the day. Cohen's testimony was very much like John Dean. I hope that it has the same impact as his too.
12
Republicans used to have integrity, such as the day Barry Goldwater told Nixon it was all over for him. There isn't a Republican in government who has one iota of integrity anymore.
22
The truly remarkable thing about this spectacle is that one of our political parties will emerge from the hearing, preaching that this was to be expected, “because government doesn’t work.”
It really is amazing, the GOP playbook. They run on a platform that government doesn’t work, because of the inherent bad character of elected officials. Then, they get elected and prove it.
Why anybody votes for a candidate with an (R) next to their name is so far beyond me that I can’t even pretend to grasp it.
26
" They seemed less interested in ferreting out the truth than in covering it up; all they wanted to do was protect Trump and discredit Cohen."
Thus the difference between 1974 and now. That was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
19
"had no desire to lead...only to market himself" Those were my words exactly, during the primaries.
I thought it was so obvious, surely everyone could see that. And when he was inaugurated, I had the distinct impression he was as shocked as we were.
The real surprise to me was how gullible so many Americans were (and are).
39
@Kane I'm surprised that you're surprised. Americans have been voting in droves, for decades, for people who clearly have none of their interests in mind. I am not at all surprised by their gullibility. They've proven it, repeatedly. They are just not able to connect the dots from A to B.
8
Mr. Kristof,
You are way off base with your claim that Trump outdoes Nixon by a mile. I guess you missed that report of a few years ago done by a researcher at the Nixon library. He found the smoking gun that LBJ and Humphrey suspected existed, but could never find. Nixon acted clandestinely in 1968 to scuttle the peace talks between the US and North Vietnam. He feared that if peace was achieved he would lose to Humphrey in the 1968 election.
More troops died under Nixon than under Ike, JFK and LBJ combined. Trump would have no idea how to pull something like that off. Had it been provable in 1968, the course of history would have been vastly different. Forty years later you do not even realize it happened.
7
You can't unring the "LBJ sent 500k troops tp Vietnam" bell. There were 40k in-country when he took office. Then LBJ fled from office and abandoned the troops there. There was no honor in LBJ - regardless of what his plumbers said sbout Nixon.
So according to Cohen the "IRS audit" of Trumps tax returns, the crux of Trump's excuse not to release the returns, is actually a lie. There is no such audit underway. This is actually a ruse by Trump to avoid having inquiring minds go over his returns too closely. He's worried that the trained eye of a good accountant will detect red flags and may actually trigger an audit. He could not withstand that scrutiny. The house of cards would crumble. The back taxes he would owe would ruin him for life.
22
@Pono
Deposits in Deutsche Bank would be traced back to Russian financiers in London, as an investigative reporter documented in New York Magazine over one year ago. He followed the money trail, because no other American or European banks would loan to Trump. That is the Russian connection Putin knows about; he doesn't need some lame sex tapes. Trump is financially compromised by an adversary. He can't afford to have those loans called.
1
Michael Cohen's warning to his G.O.P. interrogators was said with passion and was chilling. It may not happen today or tomorrow but someday when they look back on their life or look at their grandchildren's innocent faces they will be in a very dark place but it will be too late.
22
Mr. Kristof affirms his "hope the Republicans listened when Cohen told one of his G.O.P. interrogators 'I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years'."
In the 19th century, Emily Dickinson averred that "hope is the thing with feathers." Here in the 21st century, those feathers seem to be giving flight to all hope for the Republic Party, or if not that, for the nation it appears to care so little about.
7
Looks like this comment upset some one, probably a Republican, so it was redacted.
Despite Nixon's faults he was a loyal American, his Watergate antics destroyed what actual accomplishments he made, opening up China among others and signing the EPA.
Don the swindler is a criminal, plain and simple, his business practice is racketeering, he profits from cheating employees and contractors, selling worthless products, using bankruptcy for profit. We can not even understand the mentality of those who support him except the Republicans, they are feeding his corruption for personal profit. Republicans are a different species, Homo Republicansis, not quite evolved into Home Sapiens, we have been anthropomorphizing them, giving them human characteristics in order to understand them, that is a mistake, that has allowed them to undermine our society, to bring it down to a precivilized level. Cultural Anthropologists will be writing papers and studying them for many years.
18
Mr. Kristof, I rely on you and the NY Times, the Washington Post, and other internet outlets for my news, since I don't have TV at home, alas. I think, perhaps, Mr. Cohen has changed, in the sense that he is now aware that Mr. Trump has no loyalty for anyone beyond himself, but expects complete loyalty from everyone else. I think he is now telling the truth as best he can.
Based on what has come out in the written media, there is a lot going on that we Americans still do not know, and I hope that the DoJ will release as much information as possible about this president. I believe he is actually far more corrupt than Richard Nixon, whom I also remember from my youth. Nixon got in over his head, but Trump has apparently jumped in and bit off the entire hook of criminal activities.
I guess it is true that money and power both corrupt, especially if you are a small enough person to need those distinctions. Most of us do quite well without.
5
I must be about a year older than Mr. Kristof. As Watergate unfolded, I rolled the headlines up preparing for my paper route, reading a sentence or two from front-page articles on the way. I was fifteen when Dean testified. And like Mr. Kristof, I'm an Oregon kid. My paper was the Medford Mail Tribune.
In July 1974, just a couple of weeks before Nixon resigned, my mother and I toured the White House. The place was somber...sullen might be a better word. You could tell, even as a tourist taking a routine tour arranged through our U.S. Representative, that everyone was waiting for the next shoe to drop. I well remember reading in a stall at one of the museums that day: "Flush twice. It's a long way to the White House." I laughed as it sure did seem fitting for the time and place. My mother snapped a photo of me at the White House. I look like I was enjoying myself. She was a Democrat, and I planned to be one when I could vote.
Now, Mr. Kristof, as older men, we are watching history rhyme. It's sad, but it's my fervent hope that justice will be served and the country, once again, will rise from the ashes of presidential corruption to become something better, something great. Again.
12
If Republicans in any but the deepest-red districts want to keep their jobs in 2020, they'd better vote to impeach.
11
Eerily similar:
“I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.” He added: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
- Michael Cohen
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
- Jacob Marley's ghost.
32
Be careful with your impulse to have Cohen's testimony confirm your beliefs. This is exactly the kind of situation where people are at their worst when it comes to decision making.
That is, when someone tells you things that align with your beliefs.
Think Jessie whatever his name is - the man who staged his own racist attack.
Try to imagine why this could be wrong. Shouldn't be hard if you allowed yourself to go there. When Cohen was Trump's lawyer, would you have believed a thing he said? Not a chance. Now suddenly, he's your huckleberry. He's as good at spinning a yarn as Trump. Maybe better. That's why he had the job.
He's the same man he was a year ago.
As for Kristoff, the best thing he said was that this should not have happened while Trump was meeting with Kim.
Very bad judgment on the part of dems to hold this hearing now rather than next week. And for that reason alone, dems and most of you reading this, will fall hook, line and sinker for Cohen's testimony.
You're so eager to believe this that you would undermine a nuclear summit.
2
@Dred. He is not the same man. He is going to jail. The reason he is going to jail is largely (though not exclusively) due to his allegiance to Trump.
Mr. Cohen may be many things, but I believe him when he warns that allegiance to Trump leads to a bad destination.
11
Fred, a nuclear summit are you kidding? I thought Canadians had more sense than Americans, unless you are just visiting from Alabama.
@Dred
"You would undermine a nuclear summit."
Dred, you seem like an otherwise smart guy. If it was Obama meeting with Un you would be ridiculing him as a naive fool.
Un will play any POTUS, your boy DJT included. Wake up.
Comparisons of Trump to Nixon are misleading. Nixon was smart and an accomplished politician. He got caught up in the power of the office, and our institutions, namely the Congress, did their jobs in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump isn’t smart and he’s not and never will be an accomplished politician. As I write this, he’s being taken to school by a dictator half his age. He is simply unfit for the office.
Why more GOPers don’t see this is baffling. Like Trump, they seem to have tossed all their cards in with Trump’s ever-shrinking base. They took no lessons from the Democratic thumping in 2018.
The Democratic Party is flawed, but not to the extent of the GOP. Why they continue to support this racist, conman and cheat is mystifying. And it’s ironic to bust Cohen for lying when the guy in the Oval Office is such a profligate liar.
I’m waiting for 2020 when hopefully we can put Trump behind us, before he destroys this democracy that was forged by the blood of those who fought and won WWII.
Captain Bone Spurs needs to go back to NYC. Well’ if they even want him back.
20
HeyJoe NYC never wanted trump. He has disgusted New Yorkers for decades.
@HeyJoe
The Republicans are afraid of losing their jobs in a future Republican party primary. If they don't kowtow to Trump and protect the liar in chief at all costs, they will be "primaried" and thus lose their precious seats. That the primary victor will probably not win the general seems to be a real possibility now
@HeyJoe
They do not.
Quiz for Michael Cohen and his counsel Lanny Davis: What is the attorney-client privilege?
2
The Republicans are slow learners.
Their committee members especially Jordan and
Meadows were obnoxious and repetitive in smearing Cohen as a serial liar and criminal. Did they never ask themselves how he remained Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer for 10 years?
They never seemed to apply the basic logical inference that he was representing the person whom he was working for and whom they were blindly defending. Of course Trump is a serial liar and a likely criminal who directed his lawyer to do most his criminal activity. It was hard to believe that these were Congressmen who swear an oath to the Constitution and to the responsibility of Congressional oversight and yes to finding the truth.
They were stereotypical political hacks interested in only defending their President and the partisan power of the Republican brand. It was almost hysterical, but in reality just disgraceful.
I hope this is the beginning of the end for this travesty of a President. I pray that the entire corrupt administration and bankrupted Republican Party end up in the political wilderness for a very long time.
They have been unpatriotic and unfaithful to the most important principles of the American democracy and seem disinterested in the truth.
22
Nicholas got it right, this is no moment for gloating. I feel sick. How is it that anyone can continue to support Trump? The only way forward as a democracy is impeachment. Maybe Trump will resign and save us the pain, but I'm not expecting anything noble from him. Anyone calling Cohen a lier is right, but my only reply is who was he lying for? Mobster's lawyers should go to prison, but mobsters need to go too!!!
15
Why would Cohen lie in his testimony if by doing so, he eliminates any prospect of getting a pardon?
4
Why are Meadows and Jordan striving so hard to keep Pence from becoming president? It’s so suspicious.
5
Nixon committed treason, going to South Vietnam as a candidate promising a peace plan. He imprisoned thousands to prevent them from protesting. He bombed Cambodia without any legal grounds. Nixon pretended the war could be won and continued the carnage while lying to the American people. When crucial decisions needed to be made he was so drunk that he passed out. Perhaps Trump is worse, but Nixon was a lot worse than most people think.
8
@Victor Troll....Nixon had the good sense to resign.
5
@Victor Troll. Yet Donald Trump is worse than Nixon by far, even if you only use caged children as your yardstick.
The fact that Michael Cohen spent so many years beside, and doing the dirty work for, such a wretched individual as Donald Trump reflects poorly on Cohen himself. How deep could any crisis if conscience really be when it happens only when his back is to the wall? Trump and Cohen could both fairly be called sleazy.
The big difference, though, is that only one of those low characters is in our highest office. Shady, scandalous dealings don't belong in the White House. Whether or not Trump thought he would ever get this far is a moot point. He ran for the job and he got it. Trump even used criminalities to help him land the presidency!
Trump is responsible for debasing our most esteemed title. Cohen is ultimately a bit player in Trump's endless soap opera.
8
So the wrap up of Trump as not just a misogynist, racist, chaotic, bigoted man but also as that of a mafia boss is now complete? May we proceed with the prosecution please? Life in prison without the possibility of parole and let it flow from there. Or should we simply say "LOCK HIM UP".
15
@Plato
Trump's just the tip of the iceberg. He is just a petty grifter compared to the corrupt Republican Party.
I was a young adult during the Watergate era. I can certainly avow that Trump is orders of magnitude worse than Nixon ever was.
And while I found Mr. Cohen credible today, his contrition comes much too late. Mr. Cohen's acts aided Trump's successful election as President.
Largely due to Cohen's efforts, a racist, a con man, a cheat, and a man who has become increasingly deranged sits in this nation's Oval Office. Largely because of Cohen's enabling a vicious criminal prior to the 2016 election, this nation has become a laughing stock on the world stage at best, and an international pariah at worst.
And largely because of Cohen's actions, we have a "president" who has destroyed international alliances it took this nation decades to form.
Moreover, largely because of Cohen's efforts, Trump's illegitimate presidency has packed the Supreme Court with hypocritical religious zealots bent on creating a Christian Republic of Gilead. And finally, largely because of Cohen's acts on behalf of Trump, hate crimes are soaring in this country. Religious and ethnic minorities are easy targets of Trump voters who cheer as their "president" says that the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people.
Nixon was impeached for far less. And yet nearly half this nation has chosen to look the other way after the horrific damage Trump has done in two short years. Chairman Cummings said at the close of hearing that as a nation "We are better than this." Sadly, I believe that we no longer are.
12
@DB Cooper Yo are, sadly, 100% correct. I believe those are the reasons Cohen was one of the first inner circle convictions. He certainly won’t be the last.
I agree with your conclusions wholeheartedly. But I believe Cohen was Trump's "best supporting actor." Cohen may have been necessary as a thuggish, deeply corrupt enforcer to keep Trump from being found out and sanctioned, but necessary and sufficient are the various other factors: deep racial prejudice America has ignored and denied, cyberwarfare/psychops by Putin (weapons and enablers made in USA, though), a House full of know-nothing partisan white men determined to destroy Ms.Clinton because they hated her: cowards often attack women and minorities because their peers either cheer or let them, Trump's TV persona as a funny, wealthy white guy, rather than a coward, dissembler, racist, sexual predator, fraudster and liar that many of us are now convinced he is, and the hubris of a career FBI man who defied his boss and good judgement and somehow convinced himself that Ms. Clinton deserved a public dressing down (where his only ethical tool was legal sanction) then advanced his need for closure and to quiet the shrill catcalls for blood manipulated the electorate at the worst possible time. Sorry for the dissertation, but I want to suggest we need clarity about how Trump got elected distinct from how he was allowed to get away with all his crimes nearly without a scratch for decades. While the IRS writes strict new rules that intentionally shift a huge tax burden onto the citizens of our most productive states what will they do to stop pervasive and massive tax fraud?
Among of the major differences between Nixon and Trump is Nixon had an understanding of right and wrong and a sense of shame. Should Donald Trump be forced out of office, his only concerns will be whether he made money and escaped justice. One man was a wrong doer; the other is a sociopath.
9
This is way worse than Watergate not just because Trump is way more corrupt and venal than Trump, but more importantly because the Republican Party has lost almost all sense of decency and rectitude and is becoming as corrupt as Trump.
Even with a lot more damming evidence coming from the Mueller inquiry it is has had to imagine many Republican voting to impeach Trump in the House or convict him in the Senate.
Looks like the only way to save our country from becoming a corrupt authoritarian third world banana republic is to vote the Republican out of power in 2020.
Everyone needs to vote even if a lot of them will not be counted.
9
I suppose Republicans are just doing what politicians do for a living when they say we shouldn't believe "an admitted liar", but, seriously, who do you find more trustworthy:
1) A guy who lies and admits it.
2) A guy who lies 6,420 times in 647 days and NEVER admits it?
17
@David Rea
The Trump lie-score is well over 8,000 at this point...
1
The truly epic tragedy is that the American public did not get to hear any of this BEFORE electing in this President and administration.
Much of that could be put on the man that testified today (BEFORE he got caught, tried, convicted and yet to be sent to prison for), and part of that on the press and others that ''massaged'' the image of the then candidate.
We need to hold the President accountable (and all those around that may or may not include family), but going forward, there need to be laws put firmly in place regarding financial dealings of any candidate. (especially tax returns)
With proof BEFOREHAND, then the American electorate can know firsthand whether the person they are potentially voting for has broken any laws or not.
Just a thought.
11
I still believe we are framing this question all wrong. Donald Trump has a mental illness. It is called Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is much worse that it sounds, and has no treatment except containment when you are 72 years old.
The larger questions are, why did a major political party nominate and support a candidate with a mental impairment, and why is Fox News allowed to still call themselves news instead of the obvious propaganda that they are?
20
@Gustav....Yes. And the personality disorder is characterized by delusions of grandeur and chronic lying.
3
This is all Democrat propaganda. We have come to a point where people are willing to say anything about Trump simply because he won an election and they just can't accept it. So sad! Are there any other criminals they would like to drag before congress to testify? So sad. So very sad!
2
@ST You mean besides the criminals he has hired and appointed to positions on his cabinet? Very sad indeed.
Our only hope is that this Presidency serves as an inoculation and a warning to us. We must think carefully about the executive privileges that the office of POTUS entails.
Many have said that the power of the president has gradually increased over the years, and we must do more to rein it back in. The emergency Trump has declared is a good example. As we can see, now that Trump is gleefully abusing this privilege, this law puts too much power in the hands of one man. We have also seen him sack cabinet officials and allow 'acting' appointments essentially run each office. This is another abuse of power that needs reining in as well. The Senate needs more say in who runs each department, so that the President cannot run the office like a gangster.
We are fortunate that Trump is a craven fool and not a ruthless manipulator. We may not be so lucky next time around.
367
@Aaron
Although he craves strokes, he also is an artful manipulator, well trained in the art of selling himself, his 'brand,' products, ideas and has inserted people that represent his interests quite systematically in key positions of leadership.
10
@Aaron I would hope that a future congress would enact a group of "Trump" laws that will address all of the corruption and traitorous activities that Donald Trump has perpetrated on the American public.
20
@Aaron
Not a reckless manipulator?
That's the most optimistic assessment I've read in some time. I would argue he manipulates everyone in his orb to his own selfish intent. See Mr. Cohen.
11
I sat riveted watching the proceedings today. And, at times, I was moved to tears. I am an American who has recently returned to the US after living abroad for over 30 years . Cohen's disclosures of his and Mr Trump's behaviours over the last decade coupled with the questioning and posturing of some Republican members made me weep for the state of this country. The beacon of hope lay with the chairman's opening and closing remarks.
7
Great essay, and you're right, sir--it is sad. In fact, it's the most depressing low point we've reached in the failure of government, but for the Civil War.
But, sorry, Mr. Kristof--I AM gleeful--only a momentary salve in this tragic time, but I'll take it!
3
Of all the things that have been said, or could have been said about Mr. Trump, the most disturbing in my opinion is the following.
'“He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Cohen said. “Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history.’ He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election.”'
By the end of February, 2017, it was clear to me that Mr. Trump had taken the oath of office in bad faith. The words above is evidence that I wasn't alone in holding that opinion. The thing is, though, how is it possible for anyone anywhere to take an oath of office (for any office) in bad faith and not suffer any consequences? Just for that, the damage done might be so bad that it may well take generations to heal.
Mr. Trump's current misfortunes have nothing to do with consequences for taking an oath of office in bad faith. They are for other things. To me, that is disheartening and depressing; my heart sinks.
8
No one is gleeful! Those of us who believe in truth, are relieved to finally be seeing the truth revealed. I so hope our country can survive the revelation of the truth.
5
I don't remember his exact words, but the thing Cohen said that gave me the most pause was the part about how, if Trump doesn't win the next election, there could be a crisis with the transition.
9
I also watched John Dean's testimony,I was a sophomore in HS.Today,I thought back to the idealistic teenager I was back then,believing in justice and truth,as I watched todays hearings.I now question will there be any justice,though there certainly has been enough "truth"?I'm not so idealistic at 62 years old.Who are these Americans still supporting this criminal?
16
Not as serious of many things that were revealed under oath today but a question I would love answered - how did Trump get the hotel in Washington deal? I guess it do not involve Michael Cohen. Also how could an institution like the Wharton School be intimidated by Donald Trump? Are grades confidential? I do not believe class standings are. Is Donald Trump better connected outside of NYC where I do not believe high society embraces him? Is it true money just attracts money no matter how it is made?
3
“People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
Perhaps Republicans in Congress should read this statement to themselves in a mirror 3 times every morning.
That said, I can’t see what you have added to the debate here Mr Kristoff, but I think writing about such obvious and egregious malfeasance is difficult because story needs nothing but documentation, and there is little room for commentary.
4
Had John Dean been convicted of lying to congress (and other felony offenses involving lying) right before his Watergate testimony, things might have gone differently for Nixon.
3
Nixon was somewhat evil, but he wasn’t incompetent. In Mr. Trump, we have both qualities, combined with lethal arrogance. Also, in 1974, there were Republicans who were concerned enough about this country to tell Mr. Nixon to hit the road. Now, Senator McConnell does not say boo. But, am I feeling happy today? No. I feel sick at heart for my country, as I have for two years. And the idea of a President Pence is not comforting either.
However, I have hope that we will survive this administration. The House of Representatives is controlled by a different party, thus at least slowing down the runaway train feeling. Chief Justice Roberts does not want the Supreme Court to be perceived as a Trump Court or a rubber stamp, no matter how conservative the Court becomes. And, there may be a few Republicans in the Senate who don’t want their obits to start with the words. “Enabler” or “Denier”. So, I try to stay tuned and stay strong. I have no choice. Resist!
8
Cohen was mesmerizing, humbled, and completely believable, as someone who has recognized that the only things that matter in life are family and others one holds dear, and that such sacrifices are not worth the access to money or power. Better late to this light than never. And Cohen's reaction to Cummings' summary mention of seeing his daughter on crutches outside the courthouse was human and painful.
But the hearing also betrayed Republicans' feverish desperation, as they continue to bet their future in defending Trump. The fact that they failed to use the opportunity to question the details of Cohen's testimony re Trump's role, instead choosing to attack Cohen's character with the juvenile 'liar, liar, pants on fire' graphic -- a move Cohen himself adroitly took them to task for, in part by acknowledging his own role in creating this acid environment -- is telling. This was the GOP's golden opportunity to set themselves apart from Trump, and they squandered it completely. The only GOP committee member asking anything of substance was Justin Amash of Michigan, with his thoughtful, "What is the truth that you know Mr. Trump fears most?". Cohen struggled but couldn't answer the question. But I fear the country shall soon find out.
20
I have been looking back at the presidential administrations during my lifetime to see how we wound up here. Lyin' Donald Trump has been such an impetuous and incompetent disaster that it's tempting to pretend that he came out of nowhere.
But, of course, Richard Nixon participated in the obstruction and abuse of power scandals that we call "Watergate." We should recall Ronald Reagan's alleged "October Surprise" conspiracy (arranging with Iran to delay releasing the hostages until after his election in 1980) and the Iran-Contra scandal, in which the executive branch circumvented Congress to divert money to foreign fighters. Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury. George W Bush and conspirators knowingly sent thousands of Americans to slaughter in Iraq under false pretenses -- disregarding, exaggerating and falsifying intelligence -- and then refused to provide them with the training and equipment and mission plans they needed to survive.
Thousands more of us will die directly because of the Trump administration's malfeasance (starting with the rollbacks in limits on pollution in our air, water, land, food, etc.). But criminality at the top levels of American government is not unprecedented. That's not an excuse. It should be a fact that demands reparative action from all Americans.
9
The problem as I see it is that it is not only Cohen, Manafort, Flynn, and others from Trump's inner circle - plus the congressional Republicans Cohen aimed his warnings at - who will pay the price for supporting this charlatan. No, we all will. Even those of us who saw through him from the start, opposed him at ever juncture, tolerated abuse and in some cases death threats from his supporters, and continued to stand firm - we, too, will be paying the price for the people who stubbornly refuse to withdraw support from this man.
Donald Trump doesn't know or care how much damage he is doing to American citizens, American democracy, and American standing on the world stage. As Cohen indicated, Trump's only concern is expanding his brand.
Soon, the Trump brand will be a very hot potato. It will be interesting to observe the changes in those who are vigorously supporting him today - I wonder how far they will go to distance themselves from Trump when the dominoes begin to fall.
7
Mr. Kristof, I'm a math teacher and I would say that Trump is NOT Nixon squared. That is being too kind to Trump. I would argue that Trump is Nixon to the nth power--or in layman's terms--exponentially WORSE than Nixon ever was!!
8
And we can add Cohen to the list of Trump-era heroes of the Democratic Party, along with luminaries such as Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, and the homeless guy on the street corner who insults Trump all day long.
At this point can they even sink any lower? To obscure and distract from the failure of their Russia approach, now we will let harsh opinions and personal judgments take place of facts, charges, judicial proceedings.
It took me 20 years to be able to respect the Republicans again after the Starr debacle....hard to foresee how long the Democrats will be in the wilderness after this far more cynical and damaging charade.
I knew that Trump was racist, a con man and a cheat long before he ran for President.
The question that gnaws at me is, did the people that elected him not know, or did they not care? Both possibilities are disturbing in their own way.
I’m grateful that I got to spend the first fiftysomething years of my life in a Democracy. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that American democracy as we knew it is gone forever. The days of “inverted totalitarianism’ are upon us. Google that if you don’t know what it means. The time to forestall it is rapidly running out.
5
The best of us strive to live up to the time honored American values of integrity, honesty, fairness, honor and compassion for our fellow citizens in need of help. But there are those whose lives are so dedicated to exploitation that their lives are rife with a lack of integrity, dishonesty, selfishness, have no honor or compassion for others. These are the under bellied of our country and their existence is exactly why we need laws and rules that are enforced - hopefully with honesty, integrity and fairness. So its with great irony that Donald Trump is a President who rode into the White House under the banner of Making America Great Again.
4
I thought of Cohen's words to the Republicans, quoted at by Kristof....."I did the same thing you are doing now. I protected Trump for 10 years..." I thought about how Meadows didn't want to be called a racist. How he seemed actually hurt and amazed. This is just one small taste of how association with Trump will, end the end, hurt anyone.
7
i live in a state of republican dominance, governor, both houses of congress and it is stomach-turning to see the kind of disgusting loyalty they all extend to trump. they will do anything to follow the party line, regardless of consequences. they hold no loyalty or compassion for the residents of missouri, only the party. it is laughable to be told to "write my senator" when they are both robots. this is the sad state (pun intended) i live in, and it racks my heart. ibelieve every single work michael cohen said today, because i see it every day.
7
After watching hours of this nothing less than agonizing hearing, it's hard to say that anything "new" about Donald Trump was revealed -- at least, not for most New Yorkers already well-versed in Trump's ways since he spent almost all of his waking hours making sure he was on the front page of every newspaper in the city.
That said, it was a real testament to the Republican attack machine which spent more time concentrating on Mr. Cohen's contradictions and financial problems than trying to get to the bottom of this president's questionable actions both during the campaign, and after being elected into office.
As for their insistence that Trump isn't racist, it's clear that not one of those good Republicans knew of the federal lawsuit brought against him for housing discrimination because he refused to rent any of his real-estate properties to Blacks -- Or the full-page newspaper ads he took out claiming the non-white youths who allegedly attacked a white female Central Park jogger deserved the death penalty, even though they were all found to be not guilty. Trump never apologized.
In truth, there's no way to be surprised at the amount of lying, cheating and graft Trump will go to in order to be "winning".
It's just too bad that America has lost.
11
Bleak but real. I've learned not to get too elated when I read news that for any other politician would be devastating. But that base, the cult, they just keep hanging on. When the buffoon-in-chief came out of the meeting in Helsinki with Vlad, with that slope- shouldered look that said "look at me, I'm playing with the big boys now!" I honestly believed that it was over for him, that no American, even a member of the GOP, could defend treason. But I was wrong.
And when we learned about the parent- child separations at the southern border, I thought for sure the cult (both those in Congress and in the general public) would shun him now. But I was wrong again. The GOP couldn't care less about brown people.
So it didn't shock me while listening to Cohen's testimony to Congress today that the GOP continued to defend the buffoon-in-chief. And the cult continues. I mourn our democracy. Thank you, Nick, for a sobering column.
14
A day of contrast and irony. Nixon won in a landslide. Trump lost the popular vote and won the key states by very thin margins. The country was shocked by the revelations about Nixon. No one who has been paying attention is shocked by Cohen's testimony today. Nixon was an alcoholic and paranoid at the end but basically sane. Trump has a severe personality disorder and was never fit to govern. As for the irony, Nixon laid down the modern template for Republican electoral victory (the "silent majority," law and order racial dog whistles, etc.). That template is proving to be the end of the Republican Party as a serious and honorable Party. One more irony: Nixon ran on patriotism when the Vietnam War was at its height ("America: love it or leave it."). Losing that war was considered unacceptable. Yet lose we did -- only to find our President visiting there today, using Vietnamese prosperity as a talking point in trying to bring North Korea out of isolation. Interesting bookends in so many ways, Nixon and Trump.
8
I am in my 60's so have measured out my life by what I can call only a downward spiral of sordid if not criminal activities by American presidents--Watergate in the 70's, Iran-Contra in the 80's, Clinton's song and dance in the 90's, W's illegal invasion of Iraq in the 00's, and now this Trump circus, which beggars all that came before.
How is it that our nation continues to sink deeper and deeper into mendacity? What is the dynamic driving our children's future into the ground? Whatever it is, it didn't start yesterday and it won't stop tomorrow.
21
In October, 1972, articles in the Times and elsewhere made it clear the President Nixon was guilty of covering up the Watergate activities. Yes, there were not yet "smoking gun" tapes or John Dean testimony, but the outlines of the case were clear. A month later, Nixon was re-elected with a huge majority. Despite the evidence, Americans were just not convinced this was anything more than a "third-rate burglary. It took 18 months for the public and Congress to reach a "tipping point", where Nixon's guilt was finally acknowledged and he left office. It's the same with Pres. Trump: The evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors is overwhelming; it just has not yet resulted in a tipping point. The Democrats must feel that if they keep at it for the next 18 months, the tipping point will be reached in the 2020 election. It's not the evidence; it's the perception that counts now.
4
Cohen is also a liar, but he is right to say that Trump never expected to get even close to the presidency, and did not even want the job.
He should have been impeached and forced out long ago. Unfortunately the members of Congress, from both now thoroughly disgraced political parties, are unwilling to fulfill their Constitutional duty and do what is right for the country. They would rather let America suffer for two more years, and get voters to do their job for them at the next presidential election.
3
All of these qualities were abundantly displayed by DJT during the 2016 campaign and throughout his entire adult life. His assentation to the highest office in the land speaks more to how low societal standards have fallen than to how much he has risen. He is exactly the same as he always was.
10
Mr. Cohen's testimony was shockingly forthright, clear, concise, consistent, heartfelt and seemed utterly truthful. Mr. Trump should be afraid, though I doubt he will, and his supporters, when they awake from their hypnotic trance, will surely be ashamed.
2
I am not a fan on Cohen, but his testimony is quite consistent with the president’s behavior. I believe cohen’s statements as truth.
8
Why do people sound surprised? How could anyone think Trump was any different than he was depicted today.
9
The sad thing is that none of this is surprising. We have lost the ability to be surprised.
The other sad thing is how predictable the Republican response has become.
Woe is us.
9
Cohen: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
Not likely. The Republican Party has become a great protector of enablers and tacit conspirators, party members for who loyalty to the party is shield. Lacking party affiliation, their loyalty to a "gangster" might be legally called conspiracy and they might be labeled accessories to various crimes. But in America the party loyalty provides cover, the party provides an convenient alibi.
Nor is it likely that Trump's Republicans will suffer from shame. They appear immune to that emotion and the party apparatus will not shame them. In fact the party will do everything in its power to prevent and sort of negative consequence for Trump's supporters, just as they have with Trump.
Trump and/or Pence may well pardon key enablers, just as President Ford pardoned Nixon. The Supreme Court is unlikely to prove itself above Republican politics. The damage to the country from the degeneration of the one-time party of Lincoln will take decades to repair. Followers of Trump will likely never see the truth. They will probably preach Trumpism long after he is gone.
5
Horrible to listen to the testimony today. Parts of it turned my stomach and I had to shut it off. That included the abdication of the Republicans from asking few probing, genuine questions of Mr. Cohen.
I too was a 14 year old during the Watergate years, walking home from a summer job when I learned Nixon would resign. I have thought of that many times.
Today, I shut it off again when I heard this (from memory) exchange: (Chairman speaks) "Are you telling me that Donald Trump, as the sitting president, wrote you a check from his personal account to reimburse you for payment made to Ms. Stormy Daniels?"
Cohen: "Yes, Mr. Chairman."
That to me speaks volumes and volumes on so many levels. This is not about bi-partisan politics. This is about a new level of fighting for our country to survive this man with intact federal institutions.
7
I must admit that although I am a Canadian citizen (and being retired I watched the whole thing. Watching it was like looking at a car accident on the highway - you tell yourself not to look, but you do. I had the enormous opportunity to work and live in the greatest city in the world from 1995 to 2007. While living there I often walked through Time's Square as quickly as possible( like a real New Yorker) to buy Broadway theatre tickets.
Of course Time's Square is no longer the sleazy centre of your great city. No, that sleaze has moved into your White House and consequently the Republican Party.
12
The Trump saga does indeed sound like a Mario Puzo novel. Unfortunately, it is all too real.
2
I found it interesting that Cohen made a point of highlighting Trump's racism, but not his former employer's misogyny. Trump has almost certainly engaged in the type of "when you're a star, they let you do it" creepy rapey banter at some point with Cohen. Trump's own ego and systemic braggadocio would seem to guarantee that remarks of that sort would have passed between them. Was that missing from his testimony because we still don't see dehumanizing women in this way as being as egregious as dehumanizing people of color?
287
@Amy Luna-It would be interesting to know how many other "catch-and-kill" payments Cohen made under Trump's orders? How many involved other women? I'm convinced Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal were only the most recent conquests.
26
@Amy Luna. Maybe Cohen didn't need to address that because the world has already seen and heard it directly from the source. He was on the Billy Bush tape. He was on Howard Stern's show referring to his eldest daughter. On another show predicting the figure of his youngest daughter. His first wife clearly describes him in her book. We know he cheated on all of his wives. And there are many who have come forward about his tendencies. Cohen's commenting would have offered nothing new.
8
@Amy Luna So nothing less than some kind of perfect comprehensive critique of Trump will satisfy you? I'm shocked ... shocked ... to find Cohen does not meet your expectations. It may be that Cohen felt that the mysogyny ground had already been pretty well covered over the last three miserable years.
4
The worst performers in today's hearing were the Republican members of Congress who chose to revile Michael Cohen, and who focused on discrediting his testimony rather than on the terrible truths he told. Republican's behavior was worse than Mr. Cohen's--their sheer nastiness goes a long way to explain why they have abandoned their responsibility to the American public.
Their imperviousness to the outrageous facts that Mr. Cohen revealed--including that Trump and Giuliani threatened Cohen's family and father-in-law--makes them, if not co-conspirators, malefactors in this delinquent administration.
10
.... “fundamentally different from some banana republic leaders who were simply gangsters.”?
America, the richest, and the oldest modern democracy, has in office a true gangster, with his cabinet gang and GOP defenders. A sad moment in history, as the world watches. There are sophisticated ways of exploiting a democracy, as we see.
Once a role model, we're now a warning of what can happen even in a 'free country'.
Our political soil, prepared by entrenched, legalized big money and expert corporate PR, was ready for this con man and his gang. Many Trump voters will never admit they were conned. And what of the Obama voters who went Trumpward?
Step 1 on the long road to recovery--
Repeal Citizens United. That will free up our politics to move forward, and restore our famous "representation for our taxation."
The public and many politicians favor repeal. But the media has to start talking about it.
Repeal would explicitly contradict those pro corporate justices who pretended, in a lie worthy of Trump, that unlimited corporate money by mega donors is “Free Speech" per the revered 1st Amendment.
This newsworthy distortion of our Constitution has been ignored on our news media.
The Free Speech of the citizen majority was muffled---we couldn’t afford to compete in influence with money---even if technically, ‘free speech’ applied to all citizens.
It's a smokescreen.... we need to breathe fresh political air.
4
@Meredith
The history of Citizens United involves Justice Scalia, the "scholar" who knew there was an old Superior Ct. case in which a corporation was identified as an individual in a transcription error. The error was allowed to stand, although never used until Scalia used it. Scalia made his Citizen United Decision based on a known error; it was not challenged. The only way to get rid of it is for Congress to repeal it, or for a national petition be circulated. If neither one of those things happen, GE will continue to be defined as an individual, not a human individual, rather a corporate person.
3
@Linda Miilu...thanks.
Raises the question---who made the error, why was it left to stand, why did Scalia find it and use it, why did any justices agree?
And if congress won't repeal it, what groups could circulate a national petition?
All good topics for a NYT column by Kristoff or any columnist interested in democracy.
What cable news network will touch it?
To some of us there were no surprises in Cohen's testimony although it is good to finally hear it out loud, under oath, and accompanied by physical evidence.
But if Democrats had not taken the House, none of this would be happening. Republicans would still be protecting Trump, because they perceive that as protecting themselves, and there would effectively be no check or balance on this Administration just as there was not for the first two years.
It would be nice to imagine that the real culprits like McConnell, Ryan, etc. will ever be held to account for their roles in facilitating the most corrupt and incompetent Administration in history, but I'm not optimistic.
8
I read these comments as a 62 year old, and marvel at the suggestion that Richard Nixon was a paragon of any virtue whatsoever.
1
Every GOP administration has been corrupt from Nixon on. Different styles to be sure, but the same old lies.
We did it to ourselves.
7
Hi Nicholas and please know I love most of your writings. Given that, but I’d like to know where the evidence is? Without it anyone could testify in front of any audience in like manner. In fact I could testify about you having done the same things!
“People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
You can say that about the Republican Party and, perhaps, our entire nation.
1
I don’t see how the Democrats could possibly be “gleeful” at this point. This utter criminal remains in the White House and the Republicans, with impeachment blocking numbers, have made it clear that they will allow our democracy to be destroyed before they turn on Trump. Not exactly the time for celebration.
8
@Matt
Following the next election, there will be time for celebrating... and, payback. Many Republicans will be moving into complimentary government housing in the early twenties. Salud.
1
Thus far there's been no evidence or testimony corroborating details of anything Cohen has said. So what's the point? There's no legal basis to prosecute anyone or anything.
At this rate, which is really just another congressional standstill, this oversight committee will not "oversee" anything beyond the orchestrating of more useless hot air.
The Republican members will solve their all of their problems by instructing their followers to believe that Cohen a liar. The Democtratic members will issue the usual schooyard retort to the tune of "oh yeah, well you..."
Then we'll be back to business as usual. Good old reliable congress. Good old system of checks and balances.
Right. In 2020, we'll see "Trump uber alles" replacing "make America great" as the new motto of the Trump power grab.
35
@Ben Alcobra
You are clearly ignoring the opening of this discussion ... that John Dean made this kind of revelation about Richard Nixon, and the Watergate trial let to Nixon's impending impeachment - except that, of course, Nixon resigned his post before he was thrown in jail. I doubt that Donald Trump has the prudence to do that. He thinks he's invincible. But the impeachment of Donald Trump is still a possibility, and the paperwork's already been started. The only thing lacking (at the moment) is enough signatures to invoke it. The story has not been completely told. Cynicism and despair at this point are useless. We've all been waiting for the final report on the investigation of the Russian's influence in the 2016 election. Most of us want that shoe to drop. Cohen's final testimony is the other shoe!
30
@Ben Alcobra..."Thus far there's been no evidence or testimony corroborating details of anything Cohen has said."......Thus far there has been no explanation as to what Cohen would gain by lying.
46
@W.A. Spitzer
Exactly. He has plead guilty; he has been sentenced to three years imprisonment. If the NY Attorney General decides to issue State indictments, not subject to a Federal pardon, there will be another prison sentence. It is doubtful that Cohen will ever be free again.
10
Cohen's testimony was remarkable and unbelievably depressing. To think that any president of the United States would even do half the unethical and criminal things Trump is reported to have done is staggering.
I watched much of the Nixon Watergate hearings, which were quaint in comparison to what Trump does, has done, asked his lawyer to fix, and then lied about. Yes, there were a few Republican loyalists defending Nixon, but when the hearings were done, most Republicans committed to protecting this country, turned away from Nixon, and convinced him to resign to avoid impeachment.
Not so for Trump GOP loyalists today. They are like the parents of a delinquent, deranged adolescent, where the parents always claim their son never does wrong, how dare anyone accuse their beloved child of any kind of wrongdoing, and then aggress after any accuser.
So as I listened to Republicans' pathetic attempt today to discredit Cohen, rather than making any effort to get to the bottom of Trump's lies and damaging behavior, I began to realize that much of what Cohen said about Trump (e.g., Trump is all about winning and that is all he cares about) can also be said of the GOP Trump loyalists, who clearly do not care a whit that wrong is wrong no matter who does it, nor do they care a whit about the integrity and future of our country.
I thought the Democrats did a dignified and respectful job. Thank you!
13
@PB I love the way you phrased this comment, "They are like the parents of a delinquent, deranged adolescent, where the parents always claim their son never does wrong." Hits the nail on the head!
1
With the raft of indictments in Trump's inner circle, criminals are the only ones left to tell us about Donald Trump. And as Cohen reminded us all today: Trump IS the company he keeps.
7
I was not planning to watch what I thought would be a freak show. But I watched quite a portion of it while idly waiting for furniture delivery. It turned out to be a horrific freak show with the star an ocean away lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize. The machinations revealed were devastating and if there is a God Trump must be held accountable.
6
None of this comes as shocking news. Millions of Americans have known full well who and what Donald Trump is and has been his entire adult life. They voted for him anyway. The Republican Party knows who Donald Trump is; and its so-called ‘leadership’ has lined up behind him anyway.
Mr. Cohen is just the kid pointing to the passing parade who cries out, at the sight of the naked monarch, “The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!” Everyone can see that clearly, but far too many are unwilling to come right out and say so. Because just as he did with Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump has told millions of voters, and scores of amoral Republican politicians, that he’ll make it worth their while to shut up, ‘fix things’ for him and look the other way. Like all good con men, his leverage is the willful ignorance, weakness, and above all the greed of those he has conned and those who enable him.
The realization that the United States of America has come to this, in my own lifetime, is simply devastating.
9
@chambolle I love these words most of all: "His leverage is the willful ignorance, weakness, and above all the greed of those he has conned and those who enable him." You summed it up beautifully!
What did anyone expect of the Republicans today? Had they been in the least interested in investigating trump's suspect behaviors, they had two years to do it when they controlled the House. But they made a deal with the devil because he's their devil, and he's giving them what they want.
10
Aren't congressional committee members supposed to use their five minutes to ask questions of the testifier in order to search for the truth? If so, why didn't the chairman stop the grandstanders who used all their time to lecture Cohen, to sell the Trump line and try to impress their constituencies on national TV? I expected Chairman Cummings or even Cohen himself to interrupt them with, "What's your question?"
4
@On the Other Hand
"Aren't congressional committee members supposed to use their five minutes to ask questions of the testifier in order to search for the truth?"
LOL. You must be from a different planet from the rest of us!
1
I cannot speak for the Nobel Commitee that is elected by the Norwegian parliament.
But I feel so safe that he is not the kind of person to be seriously considered for probably the worlds most prestigious award and join the likes of Nelson Mandela, Linus Pauling and more recently, Malala Yousafzai.
What has the world come to now that the Japanese PM has enteret Mr Trump into the commitee to be considered.
3
@Odd Flatmark
Trump asked Abe to nominate him. Perhaps Abe decided it wouldn't be worth having Trump as an enemy, so he did as asked. This will diminish the Nobel Peace Prize if it is given to Trump, as all people tied to Trump are eventually diminished.
1
Not only Donald was accused of illegal acts, so were his children. Donald is right about one thing, Junior has terrible judgment. Otherwise, he would have put a lot of distance between himself and daddy once he graduated from college. He did graduate, didn't he?
The whole story about Ivanka and Jared is yet to be told. I expect them to unravel. She can start a website devoted to what to wear when visiting your husband in federal prison and have someone ghost write a children's book on why daddy is "away on business." Ivanka found herself someone just like daddy without the purple in the face screaming.
4
"But if a proven liar should not be believed, why do these same Republicans believe Trump?"
Exactly. Trump hired him. What more needs to be said?
8
"This is a sad moment in American history".
It was not until today, when I realized that the nightmare of Trump will be over, that I began to think about the aftermath for me.
I have lost some deep trust in my country that I didn't even know I had. To realize that we elected such a depraved man for president - how long will it take to get over that? Will I ever be able to trust our system of governance again?
"This is a sad moment in American history".
5
I was in college at the University of Washington when Watergate broke in the summer of 1972. Having returned from combat in Vietnam in June 1970, and having followed the "Pentagon Papers" story in 1971, I was in a dark place. Watching the malignant cancer that can be government excised in Congress, and the tumor that was Nixon removed in 1974, what naivete remained in me believed that maybe U.S. government would be raised up. In my 70th year I see what a fool I still am.
Trump supporters and Republican Party defense of Donald Trump is that his critics are reprehensible. That's what we witnessed today. Not one Republican sought to find out what happened. They all attacked Cohen seeking to impeach his credibility.
There are pages on the Internet dedicated to tracking Donald Trump's deceit. He lies every day. What is the latest total of deceptions since taking office? 9,000? Trump is in violation of the Emoluments Clause, a documented misogynist, racist, bigot, cheat, and slanderer, Governments that used to be allies distrust him, and yet Trump supporters, including Republican Senators and Representatives, would have us believe they're concerned with moral character?
Morality to them is apparently nothing more than a political weapon they wield against opponents, not a core belief to apply regardless of the individual being measured.
And if they like Trump, they'll have no problem with his friend Vladimir, and the many others like him determined to run our world.
16
I found it noteworthy that Mr. Cohen described Trump first as a racist, as I always felt that there lied the true reason for the 35% of Americans unwavering support of this vile man that is your president. America is still strongly divided by race and hatred for people of colour and immigrants. This is what many Canadians believe is behind the so-called crisis at the southern border (but not the northern) and need for the wall....As for the Republican party, one can only assume a great deal of racist ideology still exists among their members and especially their constituents.
The world needs to be very vigilant against the rise of leaders with racist agendas, especially when that leader is the most powerful country in the world. America.....?!!!!
620
@Carol Interesting that we don't seem to be as concerned that we have a misogynist leading our country who is gutting women's access to reproductive healthcare. The post-election research showed that sexism played just as big a role in the election as racism.
79
@Carol Mr. Trump's overt support for white supremacism is the sole reason that 1/3 of the voting electorate supports him. White supremacism is virtually innate to Mr. Trump, given the racist environment that he was born into.
60
@Carol Remember that the USA was founded in a veritable swamp of racism, and most of the Constitution's signers were slavers, including Washington and All men are created equal Jefferson, both of them big plantation owners with hundreds of slaves throughout their lives. This country hasn't yet recovered from that dire beginning and racism is strong and powerful here, especially in the South of course - and just look how that corroborates with their votes for the likes of trump.
18
What Cohen says about Trump is not the real story. The real story is what Trump says about the US and the state of our democracy.
1
After Cohen's testimony (under oath) about Trump today, how can parents or grandparents tell their children and grandchildren: "If you work hard, do the right thing, and love your country and its people, you too can be President of the United States."
Who could blame the kids for thinking or saying: "Yuck, who wants to be President of the United States, if this is how an American president behaves!"
3
I am not sure that the “business activities” of trump are an anomaly. I hope that while and after scrutinizing the trump family empires activities there will be equal scruitany of others doing business the same way and that they too are held accountable. Some of the truly wealthy have been able to do real harm to regular folk all for the sake of profit for too long with nary more than than a slap on the wrist. This truly will be party partisanship game playing if it all ends with trump. I hope we are better then that.
@christina kish
And, when they have paid their debt in prison, they could start a cooking show for TV.
In a sane world, the top news story would be about an American president sitting down with North Korea's leader.
In this bizarre realm, today's main headline was about the former lawyer of a sitting president spilling the beans about the depths to which said president has sunk and asked others to join him there.
How is this even happening?
2
There are a lot of men who lie, cheat and steal to get what they want and get ahead. There are others who also abuse, harass, and mistreat women, children and those who are less fortunate than they are. There are men who are mentally ill, or who have personality disorders and have no interest in seeking help. And then there are still others who are just plain dangerous because they're careless, violent and/or armed.
They all have one thing in common: the capacity to ruin other people's lives. Michael Cohen has been honest enough to blame himself for being intoxicated with Trump while simultaneously warning others of the potential danger inherent in enabling this kind of man.
Why we as a people elected a man president with so many visibly bad traits is beyond me. Donald Trump is a continual nightmare, embarrassment, and waste of money for Americans.
When he is gone, we'll be spending more money on restoring our alliances and our image in the world than we would have spent if we'd had a president with a coherent plan for improving infrastructure, education and health care. Instead all we got was this one-trick pony with an insatiable desire for big headlines.
10
He did not act wisely but he knows it. The more time he has had to reflect, the more painful it has become for him. I applaud his bravery, especially in light of the McCarthy-like tactics of the Republicans. Shame on them. The only GOPer on that committee who showed one iota of sympathy was Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) who was also the only one to criticize representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL). Bravo.
And yes, I'm thrilled -- just as I was after John Dean and Alexander Butterfield testified during the Watergate hearings. There's still work to be done to repair the damage that has been done to our democracy and the fabric of our society, to ensure that this maniac is prevented from creating more havoc and more pain. But at long last we know beyond the shadow of a doubt. Finally, maybe our nights will not be spent lying awake and worrying about the future of our country, the rest of the world, and our children and their children.
3
"People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I'm suffering" I'm not a powerful person. I don't have followers or constituents or a platform that attracts attention, so I can't put any pressure on people who will be thought of in historical terms. However, my humble personal friendships did include conservative and deeply religious Republicans who had a point of view that I understood, respected and even agreed with sometimes. That was then, this is now. Now we have a situation where 90% of the GOP is willing to negate all of their previously held beliefs (religious and political) and defend the indefensible for reasons only known to Fox News and their individual Gods. I can't sway them, I can't reason with them and I can no longer understand them. Therefore, I ignore, avoid, shun and distance myself from them where ever I can. I'm one of those people who used to walk into a room and give all my attention to the one person who didn't like me in an effort to change their minds. It made me uncomfortable when people didn't get along. That is all in the past now. I don't care what these hypocrites have to say anymore. I don't care about their ideas, feelings or viewpoints. I disregard their hate, anger and fear. I'm no longer your friend or care to be associated with you. Those are not the consequences Cohen spoke of but these are the only consequences I have available to me. Consider it a tiny blow against an evil empire. Sorry Mom.
8
@Rick Gage What a courageous post. I understand how you feel and I sympathize. I agree. FOX is a terrible blight on this country and Sinclair as well. If only they would turn off their TV sets or read anything other than their version of the Bible!
2
Thanks, Rick. You have summarized my situation exactly. Like you, I used to try and understand those who did not have my point of view. No longer. My Republican friends are all blind and hypocritical, having sold off everything they ever claimed to believe in order to back Trump. My evangelical sister is a total loss. I want them all to suffer the way I am as I watch the ignoramus Trump and his sycophantic party destroy America. Thank god my 93-year-old mother is still a liberal.
2
Today, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump''s personal lawyer for 11 years, testified before Congress that our 45th president, Donald Trump, is "a racist, he is a con man, and he is a cheat." These words and his explosive testimony will live in our memory long after those of us who witnessed McCarthyism in 1950s, and Watergate in the early1970s are dancing with the angels.
Today's young people, Millennials and Gen Ys, will -- in their old age -- look back on today as a watershed moment in our democracy. What remains to be seen is whether Mr. Cohen's testimony will be the beginning of the end of Trump's presidency, as Watergate was the end of Nixon's presidency.
4
The creepy thing is that Cohen just filled out the details of what everybody including Trump supporters know. I don't think it will change many votes. Those who sanctimoniously declare themselves as protectors of the moral order also known as Trump supporters, are the same ones who excuse every criminal and moral violation as long as they continue to have access to the white house.
7
Two things really stood out as I listened to the hearing today. 1) There is no limit to the hypocrisy of the Republicans. They would be apoplectic if a democratic president lied to the American public 8718 times, but it's fine with them if their president lies, cheats, & cons. 2) Congressman Cummings is a gentleman & a treasure.
13
The totally frustrating aspect of this is that those of us who aren't brainwashed with Trump's nonsense already assumed much of this. Numerous detailed articles have documented his behavior from childhood. What scares me is that to his true believers, none of this matters and if anything, it reinforces their loyalty. Can you imagine a congressman putting up a sign accusing the witness of lying by using a childish rhyme? Where has he been during Trump's 7,000 lies. This really shows how totally messed up our electorate is. The vast majority of the childish comments made by the Republicans was for for consumption by their constituents and most important to show Dear Leader they they are defending him until their own political demise.
8
Again, Trump has always been a conman. Those of us old enough to have watched his routine over decades are appalled that 40 percent of our population still falls for his act. I just binge watched The Sopranos again, and it was remarkable how many times Trump was referenced among the mobsters as a titan of industry. If fiction is more important to you than fact then I suggest you use the Sopranos to help you know what kind of person is sitting in the White House.
8
No one should miss Cohen's final fear "..that there never will be a peaceful transition of power."
The fall of the United States of America. You are right to feel a chill.
25
@Bob Woods I heard Bannon say pretty much the same thing as Cohen this past week. Worse, he predicted divisiveness reminiscent of the Civil War, in the event that Trump does not win again. Which makes me wonder what's being planned here. Bannon has been busy at work in Europe, converting Hungary and Poland to his totalitarian, supposedly "conservative," vision. I'm angry, not sad!
3
@Bob Woods
The police surveillance state is in full operation right now. They have both the voting machines and the Supreme Court. They also have the guns. Trump can sign off on martial law tomorrow, doesn't even need a pretext. The Republicans' Fourth Reich has already begun.
I don’t care.
Millions of dollars and years of investigation and still no evidence of collusion with Russia.
2
Just wait for Mueller’s report. After all, he’s nailed quite a few people as his work has progressed. And we ought to have at least four tries at it the way the GOP did with Hillary along with tens of millions of dollars. And remember on Benghazi? Nothing, except that Congress refused the State Department’s request for 320 million to beef up security overseas prior to the incident.
5
@John
As a Republican shouted at Obama in the middle of one of his State of the Union Addresses, "You lie." Here is an article which sets out just some of the public evidence of collusion with Russia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/27/republicans-media-should-re-examine-their-assumptions/?fbclid=IwAR3p0WNvLgmY0j7kupSTu8Nm8IxrhJPdWlMn67CsF_SufzhoxAV7PRR8jk0&utm_term=.3c2729930987
Of course, you have Murdoch, Sinclair, Rush, Hannity, Ingrim, Jones and the rest of the lying right-wing telling you "Pay no attention to any facts that do not support our narrative. We do not want the US to succeed as a Representative Democracy, we want a pure direct plutocracy."
1
@John
You would've gladly spent millions more investigating HRC.
Am I wrong, John?
1
If the Trump administration is worse than the Nixon administration, it's largely because the country is worse.
I remember when we first started reading & hearing the tapes of Nixon in the White House. Even for people who opposed Nixon politically, the casual criminality, the vulgarity & racism, the sheer thuggery was shocking. Many of Nixon's supporters were devastated. Today, we've already heard it all. No one is shocked. Trump's dishonesty and racism were exposed long before the election; his criminality has been exposed by journalists, his dishonesty is on display hourly, yet the Republican leadership and the right-wing media largely succeed in convincing a big part of the country that the investigators and journalists, the documents and tapes and records are the liars. I don't think there's any way for the country to deal with the problem of Trump without dealing with the problem of our completely corrupt political / media system.
8
Character is destiny.
4
The truly epic tragedy is that the American public did not get to hear any of this BEFORE electing in this administration.
Much of that could be put on the man that testified today (BEFORE he got caught), and part of that on the press and others that papered over the image of the then candidate.
We need to hold the office of the Presidency accountable (and all those around that may or may not include family if they are to be found guilty), but going forward, there need to be laws put firmly in place regarding financial dealings of any candidate. (especially tax returns)
With proof BEFOREHAND, then the American electorate can know firsthand whether the person they are potentially voting for has broken any laws or not.
Just a thought.
It's so sad, but fascinating to hear Trump pundits and supporters proclaim "But....it's not illegal....he hasn't actually committed a crime".
What happened to 'right and wrong' , 'moral' 'ethical' 'humane'?
12
I'm far from gleeful. I'm dismayed at how far trump got, and how far republicans are willing to go castigating Cohen and protecting the trump administration. I heard two different republicans ask "why can't we question an honest man?" to which i could only think, "find ONE honest person in the trump administration, I'd like to see that person. "
12
Excellent article, albeit full of doom and gloom. There's only one issue and that's Trump Believer's / followers won't believe Cohen and those of us who are more middle of the road will, likely, think that he's getting all this stuff off his chest.
And speaks the truth.
So will anything happen? After watching the Republican Dog and Pony Show today . . . I doubt it.
1
The truly epic tragedy is that the American public did not get to hear any of this BEFORE electing in this President and administration.
Much of that could be put on the man that testified today (BEFORE he got caught, tried, convicted and yet to be sent to prison for), and part of that on the press and others that ''massaged'' the image of the then candidate.
We need to hold the President accountable (and all those around that may or may not include family), but going forward, there need to be laws put firmly in place regarding financial dealings of any candidate. (especially tax returns)
With proof BEFOREHAND, then the American electorate can know firsthand whether the person they are potentially voting for is a crook or not.
Just a thought.
2
@FunkyIrishman
Much of this was indeed available to the public years before the election, and shortly before, too. Problem is, the MAGA types were convinced by their "gut," and had/have no interest in rationality and simple fact. Each side listens only (or mainly) to its own pundits, who tell their own stories, and spin the other side (Democrats) as wicked liars. I'm not sure that people are even interested in understanding each other's point of view anymore. But we see this time and again in Shakespeare's histories and tragedies.
2
@FunkyIrishman: It was all available to be known, for decades. People who think a loud mouth and money make someone great didn't care and still don't.
Why — other than fear of a political backlash in 2020 — would a Democratic House not impeach a President who perpetrated a fraud on the American people to win election and engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the federal crime that, in effect, enabled his election to the Presidency?
6
@Lee Eils
The argument against impeachment is two-fold.
1) The Senate would have to vote by a 2/3 majority to Remove him, and that would not happen. Impeachment would not lead to removal. It is also a very serious thing to overturn an election. Count on every Democrat elected going forward being impeached even on no basis whatsoever whenever the Republican control the House because they will be 'getting even.' Their primary justification for refusing to give a hearing to hundreds of Obama's judicial nomination was the Robert Bork, the man who had carried out the Saturday Night Massacre after others had resigned, was refused a seat on the USSC after hearing. When it comes to opportunities for protecting rich individuals and corporations, the Republicans simply have no point at which they cannot go lower.
2) The failed attempt would rile up his base and make his re-election more likely that a steady drumbeat of his corruption.
3
Mr. Kristof-
Are you suggesting that Mr. Cohen's testimony should be taken at face value?
The spin of both parties is making a mockery of our nations most important governing precepts and inflaming deep divisions among its citizens. While Congress is charged with providing oversight of the executive branch, the Democrat Committee Chairs in the House would be well advised to utilize the Special Counsel's report and evidence from the U.S.Attorney's as guidance for future hearings as opposed to the flawed testimony of a convicted felon.
As Congressmen Cummings said in conclusion, "We are so much better than this."
25
@Brian Williams convicted felons' testimonies are taken into account all the time in trials, especially when they come clean after having been convicted. Nothing unusual about this. He did provide proof for several of his assertions.
Also it is the Republicans complete lack of concern about the allegations that should really be everyone's concern.
Are you saying because he lied previously, we should completely ignore anything he brings up now, even if it is provided with evidence, and points to criminal activity by a man who is now president?
141
@Brian Williams
Mr Cohen is an admitted liar.
The President might not specifically admit he lies but anyone who listens, reads what he says KNOWS he lies.
Besides which, the only people Trump surrounded himself with are liars - with convicted felons there as well - Manafort, Flynn, etc.
Almost , Michael Cohen was one of the ‘insiders’ - much more than just one of Trump’s lawyers, Cohen had an office close to Trump’s in Trump Tower. He was the Trump’s Fixer. He knows what went on and hearing his testimony is important. The Republicans spent 2 years not doing ANY oversight. Thank God Democrats are in control of the House, at least.
82
@Brian Williams
Look at all the Trump people caught in a lie and convicted for Crimes. Trump Manafort and Cohen are all the same. At least Cohen had the courage to stand again before the comittee and detail his job with Trump. The GOP has been stonewalling this investigation of Mr Trump for 2 years.
79
Today we witnessed a scathing indictment of a sitting president by his former lawyer. We also witnessed a political party collectively indict itself defending the indefensible.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party are one in the same.
8
Nicholas, I also watched the same on black and white, only from Buffalo, NY, which now will be further impugned forever after Trump reportedly wanted to buy the Buffalo Bills.
Yet, Nixon was not only the 'gangster' Trump is, but was much more skilled in every way, except maybe in playing to the anger and fears of Americans to get votes. Cohen clarified that Trump is the racist that he comes across as, and I realized that he really does believe his own delusions related. Trump is a very sick man, who happens to be the President, probably through no fault of his own. More likely Russia used him and many other's faulty behaviors including not vetting and Congress not insisting on tax returns. Once we evict the man, we must be sure this never happens again! Justice will be served. The day of reckoning is here.
4
I wonder if Republican denial is so ingrained that they are blind to the irony: trying to discredit Cohen by describing him with words that every open minded observer can mistake as characterizing the president; as a pathological liar, a cheat, an unstable person only out for his own advantage.
What was just public domain hearsay is now on congressional record, delivered under oath: Trump is who we know he is: a bumbling huckster, a criminal crook, a wannabe mobster, in desperate need for money and admiration. He has sold his soul for this, and now is about to corrupt a whole nation to satisfy his ulterior needs.
No more, we didn’t know, or benefit of the doubt.
Time to stop him and end this aberration.
We can’t wait until 2020.
Too much at stake.
413
@Oliver Herfort
Trump's reflexive habit of projection has infected the GOP. This is why their denial is so deep: consciously or not, they have adopted the worst psychological traits of their Fearless Leader. And as long as it keeps them in white male power, why should they change?
7
@Oliver HerfortProof. Proof. Proof. Ever heard of it?
Cohen offers none because there is none. Please.
"Offered under oath"? Really?
1
@Maddock631 Did you miss the documentation that Cohen brought with him to back up his verbal statements? And there will be more proof coming up. AOC, for one, laid the groundwork for obtaining further documentation and testimony on Trump's malfeasance.
12
Anyone who knows something about the Mafia beyond the popular movies and knows of Trump substantially (followed him through the years) knows Trump is "Don"-like (no pun intended).
No surprise - he's a mob-boss in so many respects.
And yeah -Trump indubitably is a con-man, an egotist, a narcissist, a welcher, liar, and about as un-scholarly and boorish as one in the public eye can get.
Does he have empathy/sympathy? - fuggedaboutit!
He rules to schmooze about 42% of us. His objectives for the future is how well he fares.
Yes some good things will happen under Trump - we have (thankfully) a trillion dollars of resources - mostly dedicated long-time career professionals - pulling the strings regardless.
But mostly his hand will hamper/diminish our progress, our sustainability, our nobility, our unity, our values as a People.
Oh I know - the evangelicals, etc. love him - he'll deliver us from a woman's right to decide things most personal to her, or keep gays, etc. out of the Military, or darker people from our shores or other regressive things you can think of.
But I hope most of us ( I think 58% of us) know we are not the Mafia and we should not have a mob boss like person as President.
4
“I did the same thing you are doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.” He added: “People who follow Mr. Trump blindly will suffer the same consequences I’m suffering.”
Donald Trump has spent his entire career to this moment relying on the persistence of the illusion that he is a successful businessman, an illusion which has proven impervious to evidence for a very long time. Perhaps these words of Michael Cohen, rather than any particular piece of information, might finally shatter it, and allow the reality to come clearly into focus, which is that the American people elected a criminal to be their President.
4
Of course, Cohen is telling the truth. Certainly there is nothing he said that most people (including Republicans) already suspect of Trump. The problem is they don't care. Their attitude has been beyond "the enemy of my enemies is my friend" to "the enemy of my enemies is my savior." As long as Trump attacks non-whites and liberals, he will have their full support. I seem to recall a country in Europe that developed the same faith in a boisterous speaker with a tightly clipped mustache who dressed in khaki uniforms a lot.
12
At 85 I have more time than younger people, so I watched almost the whole darn thing. The first half of my life I was a registered Republican - actually voted for Nixon - the second half of my life I'm a liberal Democrat. People do change - often dramatically.
I choose to think that is what Michael Cohen has done.
I found him credible, able to contain his composure during incredibly mean Republican time slots - particularly Jordan and Meadows, all with a Southern accent.
I thought Chairman Cummings did a remarkable job. Republicans were not looking for any truth, they were protecting their re-election and Trump, the very same thing Cohen admitted he had done for 10 years. Those GOP committee members were doing exactly what Cohen did - the only difference is he has repented and they have not.
This country is desperately in need of integrity. Where have we failed?
99
@Pat Boice
I agree with you about Chairman Cummings. He gives me hope we will make it through these times. What a fine person he is.
4
Brilliantly insightful.
1
Trump has never had a love child because he's never experienced love nor offered it to anyone else (most probably including the five children we know about). And anyone who's willing to dismiss the sum total of Mr. Cohen's testimony on the basis of his having lied to Congress previously might just as well be wearing blinders and walking around with their hearing muffled by head-phones. If The Donald is guilty of even one-tenth of what his one-time "fixer" has alleged today he would make Tricky Dick look like Mother Teresa.
23
@stu freeman
I thought the same thing, Stu. 'Love child' may be an antiquated term to begin with, but the idea that this man ever had a loving relationship with anyone is absurd.
What a despicable human being - yet, Republican Congress members chose to keep the blinders on today. I have no understanding, and no respect for those people.
3
Is it any wonder that Trump won only 2/3rd of the Republican votes in his home county? I'm surprised he won any, given that anyone who grew up in NYC knew what a crook he was.
I was astonished that the country could vote for a President with a history of bankruptcy and short-changing contractors. Then again, I don't watch reality television, so I don't understand the persuasiveness of "celebrity".
I remember where I was when Nixon resigned. I hope that my son will have those memories of Trump.
24
@HN. Trump’s narcissism will prevent him from resigning no matter the pressure.
@HN: AND Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee.
Had he won Tennessee….Florida would not have mattered at all.
But he lost his home state.
So your point is….?????
1
I have tried for a number of years to explain the difference between Canada's justice system and America's legal system. It wasn't until today's House interview with Michael Cohen how intrinsically different the universe of Republicans and Democrats were and how the language was so different. In Canada we think in our own language and the difference between Canada and Republican America is light years yet here in Canada we do have Republicans.
When Michael Cohen was asked about lawyer client privilege by a Republican I began to understand. Our justice system is not about law it is about justice. Our system is not adversarial it is cooperative. There is no such thing as lawyer client privilege. Legal ethics in Canada is about justice not winning and losing.
If a defense lawyer in Canada has evidence his client is guilty our justice system says the information is to be shared with the prosecution and if the prosecution has what might be exonerating evidence it must be shared.
When the Republican inquisitor passionately displayed that lawyer/client privilege was the cornerstone of America's legal system I understood that for him law and justice are two very different systems of ethics and core values.
What the Republican considered America's ethical cornerstone would just above your border be completely unethical.
Truth is fundamental to justice but is inimical to a system of winners and losers.
75
People seem to think that if a lawyer tells them something, it must be true. But Cohen’s testimony (and John Dean’s, too) illustrates the limitation of client reliance on attorney-client privilege. It is basically an honor system, and it breaks down when there is no honor. An attorney who violates privilege risks consequences, the most severe of which is disbarment (other than damages for malpractice, of course, but neither Nixon nor Trump was foolish enough to sue). Cohen already lost his law license, so there is no more ethical impediment to his disclosure. That circumstance is one reason why his testimony SHOULD be believed. All the usual reasons to prevaricate have been stripped away. He has nothing else to lose, and nothing to gain by lying.
5
@QSAT
I don't think you understand my point. Our Canadian system puts the defense and plaintiff and the court on the same side it is a search for justice and though justice may be blindfolded it is only served when truth is not hidden.
The system of justice envisioned by John and John Quincy Adams is philosophical and finding scales of justice that are balanced in a system which is inherently unequal seems impossible.
The display of ignorance of the ex Louisiana Sheriff congressman speaks for itself. This is a lot more than just having a better lawyer sometimes the system will never permit justice if you are the wrong colour, the wrong religion or the wrong sex.
You may be Clarence Darrow and have truth and the facts on your side but if your opponent is William Jennings Bryan and he has a jury of his followers you are going to lose.
Attorney client privilege does nothing for truth and justice except aid in making it harder to find. In Canada both parties and the court are committed to truth and justice and often our courts find it is the law that is unjust and it is the law that is discarded.
If the Scopes trial occurred in a 21st century Canadian court neither Darrow nor Bryan would win the law forbidding the teaching of evolution would be found unjust and would be struck down.
Attorney client privilege really puts the scales of justice out of kilter especially for those deemed above and below the law.
1
l was around during Nixon's time , Watergate and Trump, we are talking two different crimes, and two different presidents, Mr.Nixon did care for his country, and did not do any thing to damage his country, yes he did unlawful things and he pay for it, but this country knew who Trump was, he is a spoiled rich man , and does not care any thing or any body himself, so instead discredit Cohen, lets correct the system so our country will not have a person like Trump for president, and this can be a republican or democrat , and male or female but somebody truthful and cares for this countries people
15
I’m an ex-New Yorker and an architect. I’ve know Trump was a crook for sone 30 plus years. We all knew you don’t work for this creep or his kids (except perhaps the architect Der Scuttt).
The country needs an honest broker to understand that taxing the very rich will not bankrupt the billionaires and will help the country in a myriad of ways especially if distributed carefully through a Green New Deal.
And so much more needs to be done . Rent credits for lower wage professionals. Real tax credit for medical care that distributes up to the very rich if not the billionaires. And tuition credits.
Democrats need to focus on these issues.
At the same time we all have to understand that it took years to put away Al Capone and John Gotti.
Today was a circus. Of course it was. Mueller has to be protected and he’s got to make sure he can figuratively decapitate Trump and his administration before he issues his report.
It’s up to the Southern District and Mueller ultimately. Not the court of public opinion. What happened today might help the Dems in 2020 though. Or not.
58
I just spoke with my 78 year old mother in Wisconsin--a lifelong Republican voter. She has been watching the Cohen testimony all day and is "livid" that the Republicans did "nothing" to try to get to the truth about Trump and Russia and Trump's other misconduct. Today's Republican Party has abandoned its Constitutional oath to protect the Nation and the rule of law. What happens in future elections if a man can commit felonies to become POTUS and then is protected from the consequences of his crimes because of being POTUS? For Goodness' sake, Trump must be impeached and indicted.
332
@Moira
Fine, but will your mother vote for Trump in 2020?
4
Nixon was corruption came for his lust for maintaining power. Yes he got caught up in Vietnam, but also did Johnson, his predecessor. But Nixon did have the best interests of the nation as his focus, and had significant achievements, particular creation EPA, a war on cancer, and enactment of Title IX which broadened women's opportunities at our universities.
A somewhat complete list of his domestic and foreign accomplishments are at https://www.nixonfoundation.org/richard-nixons-top-domestic-and-foreign-policy-achievements/
ALSO, Nixon advocated for a national health care system similar to the Affordable Car Act. Ted Kennedy wanted more. The two could not agree, and then Watergate intervened. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/06/22/stockman/bvg57mguQxOVpZMmB1Mg2N/story.html
Under Nixon, we never felt infiltrated by others. Nixon listened to advisers and knowledgeable about the issues.
But Trump has (1) viewed his current position in part to massage his financial interests, (2) publicly trusts the word of Putin over our intelligence agencies and (3) regularly speaks fiction, and (4) denies science and the climate crisis. In doing so, he has jeopardized our world standing and the whole world.
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This is a sad day for America, one of many sad days since Trump became your president. Watching Cohen testify today I realize it matters not what he says because you seem too divided, the scales may have tipped too far in favour of your autocratic president. His party is doing exactly what Cohen did, protecting Trump, and will continue to do so. I praise Rep. Cummings for his heartfelt closing statements, he brought me hope when there seems to be so little of it these days.
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@Holly
Thank you, our Canadian friend !
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I wasn’t around during Nixon’s time but I know that the hearings today are not going to change anybody’s mind. Everybody knows Trump is not a good person. It means nothing to his base and it would mean nothing to me if I supported his policies, which I don’t. Americans should grow up and stop looking for Daddy/role model/pastor/BF in the White House. Politicians are professionals whose sole requirement is to carry out faithfully the ideology they sold to their voters. Trump is doing it tolerably well, so his base is not going to budge. Democrats should focus on articulating their own political platform that can attract an electoral majority in swing states. Everything else is a sideshow.
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@Mor Trump committed felonies to get elected. If we let this stand, then we send a clear message that the rule of law no longer means anything, and that whatever felonies a presidential candidates commits are ok so long as they get him elected. We'll be on the express road to losing our decency, our democracy, and our sovereignty.
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@Moira The only felony that matters is whether he colluded with Russia - and this is not because it is more or less morally objectionable than anything else but because it casts doubt on his ability to stand up to Putin and thus to do the job of the President of the United States. I don’t think Cohen’s testimony shed any light on this issue. Having affairs with porn stars and paying them off is not a felony, or if it is, it shouldn’t be. If Americans are really swayed by such considerations in their political choices, democracy is already lost. Moral panic is not the same as rule of law.
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@Mor
Oh, if only there was any law against collusion. That would be cooler than unicorns flying through the snow.
Ask Pres. Obama: there was and could ever be no foreign interference with our election because the system is too spread out.
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Numerous commentators are appalled that we have gotten here as a nation. The reality is that there are millions of people in the US that think this is all a big joke. They care more about their phones and games than politics. They don’t realize that the society we live in is only as good as the rule of law. The US can fall if we don’t stand up for justice.
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@Anthony they also don't seem to understand what it means that Putin selected our president. That loyalty to Putin's regime doesn't prevent a high ranking official from being dragged out of a meeting with a black sack over his head, and that average Russians live on a few hundred USD a month and one in four lacks an indoor toilet. Americans don't understand that a Trump kleptocracy will lead to increased fascism at home and a USA that more and more resembles Russia---with a super-rich .01%, and fear, totalitarianism, censorship and poverty for the masses. Trump believes Putin and listens to Putin over US intel. Trump wants to become a little Putin at home. This can not stand.
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@Anthony
Exactly, these people are the like children who steal from their grandmothers. Self centered and immoral. All it is from them is wrapping themselves up in God, the flag, and guns. Being a true American means to hold politicians and elected representatives to tell the truth. Look at the GOP rush to war in IRAQ, the bush administration cherry picked facts and the US fought a useless war that cost a trillion dollars, wrecked a nation, and killed 4000 americans with another 25000 injured... Since 2000 the GOP has just gotten worse. Look at NC and the GOP congressman ballot stuffing, look at Roy Moore and Joe Arpaio an alleged predator and a convicted felon running for office..
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@Anthony It is this reality that will bring the country down. The people I know under 30 don't care at all about politics. Probably didn't vote because they didn't know there was an election that day. History repeats itself? What history? I've met people who don't know who Hitler was. Or care. But hey, did you catch the Oscars on Sunday? Michael Cohen? Is he the guy who writes movies with his brother? We're doomed, folks.
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I'd love to know how the Republicans on the Oversight Committee justify today's "performance" to their constituents as anything resembling a fact-finding mission. All they did was further smear a man who needed no further smearing, to protect a president who would (as Cohen predicted) one day do to them what he does to everyone... because in Trumpland, all streets are one-way.
As for Trump being Nixon squared... I'm Mr. Kristof's age, and also recall watching the Watergate Hearings on TV -- all day every day. To me, the most significant difference between Nixon and Trump is that despite his numerous shortcomings, the former was still a statesman. He met, historically, with Brezhnev in the U.S.S.R and with Mao in the People's Republic of China. Yes, he was disingenuous in not ending the war in Viet Nam sooner, but he had actual accomplishments to his record. Watergate, his Waterloo, was strictly domestic in scope, and didn't embarrass the country before the rest of the world. Trump is no statesman, and his scandals involve a foreign adversary. I'd say Trump is Nixon cubed!
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@D Price: Principled Republicans in Congress played an important role in investigating Richard Nixon's offenses, and ultimately called on him to resign from office. Since the death of Sen. John McCain, I'm not sure we have any principled Republicans in Washington any more.
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Correct, Bearded One. It was the loss of his own party's support that ultimately made it untenable for Nixon to remain in office. Would that there were a single Republican today willing to stand up for what's right, and splinter off from the rest. But alas, there is not even one.
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@D Price The most significant difference today was in the Republican Party. Howard Baker and Sam Erwin were truly bipartisan in finding the truth behind the Nixon corruption in the name of the Constitution and our Democracy. The current crop of Republicans have none of the integrity of the Party that participated in Nixon's prosecution. They are corrupt and only concerned with preserving their power in the Executive, regardless of the crook currently inhabiting its helm.
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the facts of trumps depravity are not in question, but the interpretation of them by liberal commentators is overly optimistic (trump is about to fall). during the watergate affair republican lawmakers were still committed to the preservation of the constitution and democracy. that is no longer the case. republican lawmakers are committed to the acquisition and maintenance of political power so that they can use it to the benefit of their wealthy benefactors. right now there is only one political party who is interested in preserving our democracy and that is the democrats. unfortunately their shift to the left may destroy any chance they have of increasing their tenuous hold on what little power they have to stop the republicans from turning the US into a fascist state.
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Interesting that keeping taxes on the rich low, keeping students in debt and keeping the majority of the population away from doctors are more important than preserving the Constitution. Is that the radical leftward shift you're talking about, or have I missed something?
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Wonderful synopsis. It’s not that this is new. It’s that we need to be reminded how bad this is. Today does that.
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I have heard for forty-four months that Trump was going to implode. He hasn't. Do not underestimate him, the Republicans, or his supporters. The Republicans got one of the most imperfect candidates imaginable into TWH. Too many Democrats won't settle for anything less than perfect or they will take their marbles to Jill, Howard, or stay home. Should I be glad about Cohen? Yes. The worse things get, I will get hurt, to be sure, but (1) many who voted for him will get hurt worse, which I frankly want, and (2) the more likely that maybe this country will come to its senses. Even if miracles occur, the Democrats will be given only 2 years to completely fix the mess before the short sighted public gives the Republicans control of the House. Frankly, I am hoping big time for a come to Jesus moment with climate change.
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@Mike S.
You saw Republicans on that Committee come together today as a monolIth with a single mission. To protect Donald Trump. Finding the truth played no part in their questions. In fact, the funniest part of their display how appalled they were that Cohen was a liar while defending, Donald J Trump, the biggest liar of all.
I was struck by Cohen's comment that dishonesty as a real estate lawyer for Trump was something he considered trivial, but that dishonesty on a national scale, concealing truths about affairs and payoffs and illegal use campaign finances while working for a president on a larger stage was different. He finally realized he would always be the fall guy, and I'm so glad it led him to today's testimony.
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Watching the Cohen testimony is like being a Rapa Nui islander on Easter Island watching a couple of elders discuss who messed up the placement of a giant stone head.
Meanwhile, I’m worrying about how I’m going to fix my canoe to go fishing because my neighbor just chopped down the last tree on the island.
We need to stop wasting time on this stupid political wrangling and get together to solve our pressing ecological issues.
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@Heather Well, Heather you might have noticed that Trump not only lies about his behavior but he lies about things like climate change. This is not stupid political wrangling; it's about a president who lies about everything and anything and who hires people who will lie about everything and anything. It's how we got where we now are on climate change and science.
This morning I was trying to get news and weather on the car radio. I was horrified by all the time the stations were giving to the testimony of Cohen. Regardless of my opinion, I believe the media, especially your newspaper, goes too far in pointing to the evil of Trump. People believe what they want to believe.
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@Francis Andrew Kasoer
Agree with your general point that there is a lot of coverage. Frankly, today's weather is more likely to affect you personally than Mr. Cohen's testimony. But let's extrapolate your belief that , "People believe what they want to believe."
I believe that the earth is flat. I believe that a red light is only for other cars, not mine. I believe that I should decide who gets educated. I believe that I should pay only what I want for my taxes. I believe that everyone should start the morning with an episode of Sesame Street or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Actually that last one might be a game changer. ; )
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@Francis Andrew Kasoer
True, people do believe what they want to believe, but that does not mean that we should not seek the best evidence as beliefs are not all equal.
If my neighbor does not believe in vaccination, her unvaccinated child will still be vulnerable to contagious diseases; belief is powerless against disease. if I do believe in vaccination and have my children receive them, they will not be vulnerable to the types of infections diseases vaccines prevent. Which "belief" has the better evidence?
Beliefs based on evidence are more properly called facts. The thing about reality (facts) is that they function even in the face of total refusal to accept them.
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@Francis Andrew Kasoer
And I say finally, finally, FINALLY there are lawmakers seeking accountability.
Six people connected to Trump's campaign have been indicted and/or pled guilty. Something is very dirty about the Trump campaign and I want to know what it is.
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Yep, democracy continues to crumble... we're just more clear about the cause.
I'm not holding my breathe for the GOP congress, the 'base' or Fox News seeing the light. We still need to fully activate through to the 2020 election, and hope we can move through this, and begin the rebuild.
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The sad part of all of this will be the 35% or so that will not budge one iota because the persona that testified today (no matter how truthful he may be now) is no longer part of the team.
This just means that any evidence that Mueller has is going to have to be absolutely air tight - hence him taking so long.
We shall see.
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@FunkyIrishman
I agree, but I'll take your cynicism a step farther and say even if the Mueller Report is absolutely hermetically sealed airtight, those same 35%-40% of Americans who are Trump supporters, including nearly every GOP congressperson and Senator will still not budge one iota. The GOP is now the POT - Party of Trump.
Therefore, impeachment and removal by Congress is impossible.
Our last hope is to vote out tRump and as many GOP/POT cultists as possible in 2020.
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We agree with a lot you say and hashed it out with two Vietnam Vets today. I am not a vet.
We discussed every point you make hours ago.
Good luck to us all.
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The difference between Trump and Nixon was highlighted by one of the Democratic committee members: he said that the actions Cohen described are consistent with what we’ve observed since Trump’s been in office.
With Nixon, we were shocked by the details of his criminal behavior. With Trump, we’re not at all surprised.
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The difference I see is that while Nixon had his defenders on the Watergate committee, there were others like Howard Baker who really wanted to get to the truth. The current Republicans in Congress are like members of a cult --- they blindly support Trump and don't seem to care whether the allegations against him are true.
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@Rodger Lofton. Absolutely correct. Republicans today owe their souls literally to the “company store” that paid for their elections. They are so beholding to the capitalist notion that they are ready, willing and able to sink the entire ship of state and the Constitution in order to keep this Prez in office and the rich on top. Most horrifying is that fully one third of the voters find it amusing to undermine the laws of the past 70 years by supporting him as well.
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Indeed, we should not be gleeful. We should be determined, persistent, goal-oriented, and dedicated to the rule of law.
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“He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Cohen said.
Trump is now in Vietnam with Kim Jong-un working out a "nuclear deal" so that Trump can win the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has no idea what he is doing. North Korea is continuing to advance its nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, Trump tore up the Iran deal and the INF Treaty with Russia. He is also working to transfer nuclear weapons technology to the Saudis.
Trump alienates our NATO allies, works against progress with the EU, works against the TPP and withdraws the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord.
The Doomsday Clock is set at two minutes to midnight, based on the dual threats of climate change and nuclear war.
We elected a "gangster" to oversee the Executive Branch. He has installed two Supreme Court justices and countless judges to the federal bench. Republicans in the House and the Senate have dutifully been following him over the cliff.
We are in perilous shape. And despite all we now know, we still cannot count on Mueller to save us. We cannot count on impeachment to save us. We cannot count on the 25th Amendment to save us. We must save ourselves.
Register as many Democratic voters as you can, and encourage each one to rally behind the eventual presidential nominee, as well as around Democrats running for election at all levels.
The future you save will be your own. And the future of your children.
Hopefully it is not too late.
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@Blue Moon
I hope you are right, but I fear the country is doomed.
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@Blue Moon, there was no deal. The art of deal maker fizzled. Thank goodness Pompeo was present he at least has a sliver of intelligence (no pun intended).
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@sarah
Which parts aren’t true, Sarah? Be specific and give supporting evidence please.
3
It turns out that about 35% of Americans - and nearly all Republicans - love a liar, a cheater, a swindler, and a criminal as long as he's on their lying, cheating, swindling, criminal team.
Donald Trump is as Presidential as Charles Ponzi.
And there are thousands of clues, hints and pieces of evidence that he is and always has nothing but pure Extra Virgin Snake Oil.
There's no 'there' in Donald Trump.
He's just an endless black psychological hole that part of the world has fallen into.
It's critical that America remove itself from the black hole that is Individual #1
As Richard Nixon said, America deserves to know whether or not their President is a crook, and Donald Trump is a crook.
And the Republican Party and its voter base are accessories to his ongoing Presidential crimes.
America is better than this.
Investigate
Impeach
Indict
Incarcerate
Individual #1
Make America Great Again
830
And let’s ensure that all those who have enabled this mess also be held fully accountable. ALL of them.
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@Socrates -- is it possible to impound a presidency??
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@Socrates
As a Canadian, I grew up on American values, and I say that with the most respect. A child of the decade that ended late in 1963, I was immersed in American media, culture, and zeitgeist. Even as a kid, I got it that there wasn't freedom everywhere like there was in America. Only later on did I begin to appreciate America as an idea as much as a place.
So, I would very much hope that future will Make America Great Again.
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I am a Democrat, and long for an end to the madness that is the Trump presidency.
However, Mr. Kristof is correct, this is nothing to celebrate. I hold hollow hope that anything will actually happen to Trump as a result of testimony (Trump's ability to evade consequences is startling and impressive), but Mr. Cohen's testimony paints an incredibly bleak picture of the state of this nation.
I hold some hope that there are those who still care about truth and justice, more than politics or power, more than party or prestige. It is a slim hope, because that hope keeps getting dashed, but I do have hope despite it all.
I hope that something good comes out of this awful mess.
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@Kristina
If what comes out of this is the complete destruction of the Republican party that lead us down this forty year long rabbit hole, I will be grateful.
No, just not being Trump will not be enough. We deserve a vibrant democracy, not oligarchs and syncophants.
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@Kristina
I am afraid that it is too late. I take comfort in the fact that I am old and will most likely not be around for the reckoning. Heaven help those who come after us.
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@Lucien Dhooge
I am "only" middle aged, and I have a teenage daughter, and I teach high school. I am surrounded by youth, and I hope I'm only halfway through my life.
Please do not stop fighting for truth and justice just because the odds are frightening and the path unclear. Those of us behind you need all the help we can get, and you can make a difference. We all have legacies to leave, and though a little help from heaven would be great, some help from those on earth would be great, too.
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At this hearing I found Mr. Cohen’s testimony to be very credible. Why would a man who has already been sentenced for lying and fraud continue to lie knowing that by doing so would increase his sentence by many more years? The simple answer is that he wouldn’t. The Republicans on the committee continued to hammer him about his past lying, we know that he has admitted to it, while at the same time they continue to defend a man that has lied over 8000 times. Sadly this will have no effect on his base, but the world is watching and I can only hope that rational independent thinkers and voters are paying attention.
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The testimony today was reminiscent of a movie about a mob family turned “ legitimate business”; always looking for ways to defy the law.
Perhaps the strategy of prosecutors will be to act like they would in a racketeering case.
Ultimately, this will be decided in an election of the American people in November 2020. Mueller, the SDNY, et al can’t save us from Trumpism. This must be done by the American people in a vote to either support Trumpism or flatly reject it.
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The real difference between Nixon and Trump. Nixon had the decency to resign. Mr T is only half way to his goal and he and his backers have a lazy 2 years to achieve it. Absolute Power. The world won't change but the invisible bond that have made America Great are dissolving.
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@Mark Nidorf.
Another real difference: whatever else he may have been, Nixon was an intelligent, experienced politician who did have a number of achievements while in office that benefited average citizens. Trump can claim none of those attributes -- he's nothing but an incompetent conman.
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@Mark Nidorf. Watergate was a cancer on the Nixon presidency. The Trump presidency is a cancer on democracy.
Are we surprised? A - that DJT is the least qualified person ever to be elected to the presidency? and B - that the GOP is ready to ruin itself completely by going down with the ship?
This has been going on for forty years, starting with the election of another media star. It got a huge boost when SCOTUS appointed GWB president halfway between 1980 and 2020.
If the Democrats do not win both houses next year and the presidency it's hard to see how the rest of the world will take the U.S. seriously. It is in danger of becoming a rogue state.
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@Ruskin All great points.
Decent republicans who resigned or would not run again because of trump are looked at as heroes. The rest in infamy.
You are correct about the Reagan media star presidency, he, like trump, was elected by a television culture.
I travel extensively the rest of the world barely takes US seriously now under trump. But the US usually does the right thing after it tries everything else!
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@Rich
"the US usually does the right thing after it tries everything else!" - Winston Churchill.
9
@Ruskin
Please do not compare Reagan's resume with DJT's. Before Reagan ran, he was president of a large union, and governor of a large state.
3
Well said, Mr. Kristoff. During this era of overvaluing fame and glitz, aligning oneself with power and glamour is difficult for many to pass up, as it was for Mr. Cohen. It is a sad moment in our history, indeed--certainly not a time for glee.
Chairman Cummings' remarks spoke directly to the hearts of people of good faith. And Mr. Cohen's reactions showed me a man, who at his core, still has redeeming qualities.
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“This is a sad moment in American history, for Nixon walks again. Squared.”
Nixon’s administration tainted the Office of the President. Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew resigned in a plea deal to avoid bribery charges. Nixon resigned as the tapes proved he obstructed justice and impeachment was inevitable.
“Hold my beer.”
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@Kathy If Fox news and the right wing media we know today had existed during the Nixon administration, no one would have resigned, no one would have gone to jail.
2
The witness protection program will have a new client in a few years.
33
How much more evidence will it take to convince Republicans, for the good of this country, to cut Trump loose?
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Reply to Bill:
Call me cynical, but I’m afraid the GOP will never change course on Trump. It terrifies me to think this historic moment will change nothing, and DJT could even win again in 2020.
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@Bill
The Republicans are not after the truth.They are after power which for them is far superior to truth.
Too bad for all of us
3
@Bill
Cut Trump lose? As in President Pence?! I don't know. Maybe better to ignore the liar we have and know than suffer under a Pence theocracy. Can you imagine how the Republicans now supporting Trump will frantically support anything Pence tries? Hmmm?
This president’s corrupt administration won’t teeter unless Republicans decide that enough is enough. It’s people like Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan who keep this foul regime running on fumes.
Just imagine if it were Barack Obama being accused of the offenses that have been credited to him by his former attorney. Republicans have the back of a president who is a liar and possibly guilty of serious crimes against the country.
If Republicans want to make America great again they should heed the words of Chairman Elijah Cummings who said “we are better than this!”
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@silver vibes
It's simply not true that, "...we are better than this".
In the present moment "this" is exactly who we are.
Of course we should aspire to be better than "this".
Of course we should vote to be better than "this".
But "this" is who we are right now and we all need to accept a share of the responsibility.
Look in the mirror.
Too many of us went to sleep and allowed "this" to happen in our country.
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@silver vibes
The only thing that these dead enders fear is a primary. That is what the Democrats should be doing now, engineering primaries where the people are given a chance to vote for a clean candidate rather than a dirty one associated with Trump. When these guys see the primary challenge they will come around quickly.
@ArtMurphy
I didn't go to sleep. I have been yelling till I am hoarse and it hasn't made much of a difference, the right wing is better at propaganda and brainwashing than I am.
Before Democrats get all excited, remember that his supporters do not care and in fact expect him be all the things Cohen accuses of Trump.
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@Bogey Yogi. Do you see “excitement” in any of the responses to this column or in the responses to Cohen’s testimony? Perhaps your acute perception is what leads to your inability to condemn the sycophancy of the Republican Representatives .
The only thing sadder than the fact that we have a criminal as our President is the grotesque spectacle of congressional Republicans STILL trying to protect him from the consequences of his crimes. The Republican party has lost its mind, and its soul.
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@JF Actually, I think the ongoing protection the entire republican party continues to give trump is sadder than trump himself. If republicans had a shred of loyalty to this country they would stand up against this horrible, criminal man. But they don't, and they won't, and I am very fearful that we may actually have to endure 4 more years of this disastrous presidency.
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@JF
It's pure self-interest. They don't care about Trump or anything he does; they only care about protecting their own positions.
But if Trump knew history, he would know that Republicans also stood by Nixon long into Watergate...until they didn't anymore. Then they abandoned him faster than rats from a sinking ship. Let's hope that bit of history repeats.
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@JF. My first experience with Jim Jordan and the horrible others in action. Glad to know what the democratic challenger will be up against in 2020. Thought lindsey graham at the Kavanaugh hearing was a nightmare aberration. These tea partiers were scary. What kind of people would elect some of the specimens that spoke today. Don’t ever join the military if you don’t want to be abused folks. Is there hope?
37