Michael Cohen calls Trump a 'racist' and a 'con man' in scathing testimony
Updated: 4:40 p.m. | Posted: 6 a.m.
President Trump apparently blessed the meeting his son held with a Russian delegation to get dirt on opponents in 2016 and welcomed advance word of efforts by WikiLeaks to disrupt the election, his former lawyer told Congress on Wednesday.
Those were only a few of the politically incendiary allegations Michael Cohen made in a landmark hearing before the House oversight committee, although he stopped short of accusing Trump and his campaign of a full-on conspiracy with the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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Cohen did, however, allege that GOP political consultant Roger Stone phoned Trump to tell him that WikiLeaks intended to release a batch of emails that would embarrass the Democratic National Committee.
Cohen described being in Trump's office when Stone called to say he had just talked with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the release. Stone has denied that, but he too is facing charges of lying to Congress, in a federal case in Washington, D.C.
'I Know What Mr. Trump Is'
Russian intelligence officers stole emails from the Democrats and others as part of a concerted attack on the U.S. election, although it still isn't clear how much Trump and his campaign knew about Russia's efforts or whether the material WikiLeaks obtained had originated from the work of Russia's intelligence services.
Cohen was asked whether he believed it was possible that Trump and his family might have been compromised or whether they might have been willing to collude with the Russians.
Yes, he said.
Cohen also suggested that Donald Trump Jr. may have told his father about the June 2016 meeting he scheduled at Trump Tower following an offer of help from the Russian government -- one President Trump has denied he knew about at the time.
But Trump knew about everything, Cohen said.
"There was nothing that happened at the Trump Organization ... that did not go through Mr. Trump for his approval and sign-off," he said.
A laundry list of alleged wrongdoing
Republicans reject out of hand
Republicans and the White House rejected Cohen's allegations before he even made them, pointing out that he has pleaded guilty to federal charges of lying to Congress and has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., objected to the proceedings on Wednesday before Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had even delivered his opening statement, leading to a dispute over whether the hearing could continue.
Ultimately, it went ahead.
Trump said on Twitter that Cohen is only trying to get a lighter punishment, having been sentenced to three years in prison.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders slammed the House oversight committee for giving Cohen a venue to air public complaints against the president when Cohen is a "convicted liar."
Schemes within schemes
How Many Times?
A spokesman for Fordham University told NPR on Wednesday that the school received an initial phone call from the Trump campaign and a follow-up letter from a Trump attorney "reminding us that they would take action against the university if we did, in fact, release Mr. Trump's records."
Fordham also said it was a moot point because it was "bound by federal law, and that we could/would not reveal/share any records (as we would not reveal any student records) with anyone except Mr. Trump himself, or any recipient he designated, in writing."
Trump, meanwhile, was preoccupied with the release of President Barack Obama's college transcripts.
A contentious hearing
Trump's allies called the hearing a political circus.
"This might be the first time someone convicted of lying to Congress has appeared again so quickly in front of Congress," said the oversight committee's ranking member, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. "Certainly it's the first time a convicted perjurer has been brought back to be a star witness."
Cohen even reportedly lied about delivering his own son in the hospital, Jordan said.
And Cohen didn't lie only to Congress, observed Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn. He also lied on his tax forms for the Internal Revenue Service, transgressions that were part of his guilty plea in a federal case in New York City.
Meadows also invited an official from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Lynne Patton, who was a former Trump employee. She stood up at the hearing. If Trump is a racist as Cohen charged, Meadows asked, why did he hire Patton, a black woman?
Cohen asked in response why there aren't any black executives within the Trump Organization. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., called Meadows' showcasing of Patton insensitive.
Republicans also said Cummings and Democrats have become so deranged by their animus toward Trump that they were willing to risk his negotiations in Vietnam.
The president is meeting with the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, but his supporters complained about what they called an inappropriate focus away from those negotiations over nuclear weapons and onto Cohen's accounts.
Cummings called Cohen's statement too important not to hear, and he said that Americans listening to the hearing should judge for themselves whether they believe him.
NPR reporters Scott Detrow, Ryan Lucas, Tim Mak and Barbara Sprunt contributed to this report.