Marc Thiessen, Michael Cohen’s “Bombshell” Testimony Didn’t Explode
March 1, 2019
By MARC THIESSEN
[Editor’s note: The obscenity of the House Hearing featuring Michael Cohen (“Trump’s former fixer”), who refuted the Democrats “wet dream” of evidence of Russian collusion, came when the former DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who had sabotaged Bernie Sander’s campaign to guarantee that Hillary would be their nominee and who has a history of political corruption unmatched by any other member of this Congress–including orchestrating the Parkland shooting to justify the “March for Our Lives“–pressed Cohen for evidence she knew did not exist. Stunning!]
Michael Cohen was supposed to provide “bombshell” testimony against President Donald Trump. Well, the bombshell didn’t explode.
Not long ago, many were speculating Cohen might have recorded conversations with Trump admitting that he had made payments to Stormy Daniels for political purposes, instructed Cohen to lie to Congress, colluded with Russia or knew in advance about the infamous Trump Tower meeting. It turns out Cohen didn’t have anything like that. His testimony was certainly embarrassing for the president, but Cohen offered no evidence to advance the cause of impeachment.
To the contrary, some of his testimony was exculpatory. While Cohen testified that Trump ordered him to pay off Stormy Daniels “as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” elsewhere in his testimony he declared that Trump did not care about winning the election. He said Trump saw the campaign as an “infomercial” for the Trump brand, adding “He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign — for him — was always a marketing opportunity.”
Well, if Trump didn’t care about winning, that undermines the case that the payments were a campaign finance violation. Indeed, Cohen offered evidence that Trump’s motivation was in fact keeping his affair from his wife.
“He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it,” Cohen said. “Lying to the first lady is one of my biggest regrets. … She did not deserve that.”
Paying hush money because he did not want his wife to find out he was having an affair with a porn star is sleazy, but it is not a crime.
Cohen also cleared Trump of the charge he had directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower project. Cohen declared “I lied to Congress” and Trump “did not directly tell me to lie.” Cohen said he assumed Trump wanted him to lie, so he did what he thought Trump wanted. Sorry, that’s not evidence of a crime.
Nor did Cohen provide proof of collusion with Russia.
Indeed, he told the committee “I wouldn’t use the word ‘colluding’” though he thought there was “something odd about the back-and-forth praise with President (Vladimir) Putin.” So did many of us. But while saying nice things about the Russian dictator may be evidence of bad judgment, it is not evidence of a criminal conspiracy to collude with Putin to steal the election.
[more]
https://www.alexcityoutlook.com/2019/03/01/cohens-bombshell-testimony-didnt-explode/