It’s sure looking like Michael Cohen lied again to Congress yesterday.
He has previously admitted to lying to Congress the last time he was there, but now says this time he’s telling the truth.
The only problem is people immediately found holes in the story he was telling yesterday.
Once a liar always a liar?
The “big lie” from yesterday that everyone is talking about is Cohen claiming he never wanted a job in the Trump Administration.
But that was immediately disputed by people in the know, like a guy named Don Jr.
Here’s what people are saying:
Meanwhile, even CNN's Jake Tapper had to come out and say "all of their evidence" suggests Cohen is lying.
Take a look:
The Washington Examiner delves deeper:
Michael Cohen provided marathon testimony in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee today and Republicans argued that he lied. Again. The House Oversight Committee’s ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, ended with a statement outlining what he saw as new falsehoods.
Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress in Nov. 2018 after lying to Congress about the timing of the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. In his closing statement, Jordan said, “We know Mr. Cohen has been dishonest in the past … that’s why he’s going to prison in two months.” And then he laid out what he saw as Cohen’s numerous lies in front of Congress today.
Bank Fraud
Jordan: “He said he never defrauded any bank when he was being questioned by Mr. Comer. Obviously that’s not true because he’s going to prison for that very offense.” Cohen's statement that “I never defrauded any bank" was plainly false. One of his felony convictions is making false statements to a financial institution.
Legal Ethics
Jordan: “He said today that he was a good lawyer who understood the need to represent his client with legal advice. But in his written testimony he said that he never bothered to consider whether payments to women were improper, much less the right thing to do.”
Cohen’s prepared statement said he did not think about “whether that was improper,” nor did he think about “whether it was the right thing to do or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.” While Cohen's view of his skill as a lawyer might well be inflated, his laxness over the payments was probably not criminal.
Foreign Business Dealings
Jordan: “He attested, in his signed truth and testimony form, that he did not have any reportable contracts with foreign government entities, but earlier he admitted to having agreements with at least two foreign entities owned, in part, by foreign governments: BTA Bank of Kazakhstan and Korea Airspace Industries of South Korea.”
Both Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank JSC and South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd confirmed that they made payments to Cohen, which is difficult to reconcile with the form he signed.
Hush Money Payments
Jordan: “He said to Chairman Cummings that Donald Trump directed him and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to, quote, ‘Go back to his office and figure out how to make a $130,000 payment, but in his testimony, he says, ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from my home equity loan line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact the campaign.’”
On the face of it, Cohen's two statements are hard to square.
Women for Cohen
Jordan: “And in response to a question about him paying to set up the fake Twitter account — ‘Women for Cohen’ — that he didn’t direct the commission of that Twitter account. He says, ‘I didn’t set that up, and it was done by a young lady who works for the firm.’ When, in fact, he did ask the IT firm Red Finch to set it up, according to the owner of Red Finch.”
It’s been widely reported that Michael Cohen hired RedFinch Solutions in 2014. On this point, Cohen seemed to be evasive at best.
Job with the Trump Administration
Jordan: “Finally, he said he didn’t want a job with the administration, but the attorneys with the Southern District of New York stated that this was a fact. When asked about this, he said, ‘I wouldn’t call them liars, but that statement is not accurate.’”
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. both tweeted today that Cohen was lying about not wanting a position with the Trump administration following Trump’s election.
As Cohen has already discovered, lying to Congress under oath is perjury, a felony. His lawyer Lanny Davis, an ally of the Clinton family, is likely to be scouring the transcript of his more than five hours of testimony to assess whether he has put himself in further legal jeopardy.
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