Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer to Donald Trump, will publicly testify before the House Oversight Committee — delivering remarks under oath in which he’s slated to call the President a “conman” and a “racist” — starting at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
Cohen, who was disbarred in New York after pleading guilty to lying to Congress about his pursuit of a potential Trump Tower development in Moscow and committing campaign finance violations, will call Trump a “cheat” in his testimony, according to his prepared opening statement.
Cohen suggests in the statement that Trump implicitly instructed him to lie about the real estate project in Moscow and says Trump knew he was lying to Congress. According to his prepared remarks, Cohen will say that Trump knew about and directed negotiations for the Moscow development project during the presidential campaign and lied about it.
He is also prepared to tell the House committee that Trump knew in advance about WikiLeaks’ release of emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Cohen claims in his statement that Roger Stone told Trump about the email dump from WikiLeaks in June 2016.
According to the statement, Cohen will also provide a check that Trump personally signed while he was in office to reimburse him for a $130,000 payment made to keep Stormy Daniels, a porn star, quiet about her affair with Trump.
Cohen additionally details racist statements from Trump, including saying that “black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”
Cohen is not expected to discuss matters related to the investigation looking into links between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election by special counsel Robert Mueller. House Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings said he did not want to interfere with Mueller’s investigation.
The live testimony before Congress will take place as Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam. When asked if he had any response to Cohen’s testimony, Trump didn’t answer and just shook his head. In a tweet early Wednesday, Trump said Cohen “is lying in order to reduce his prison time.” Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May following his guilty plea.
Among those expected to question Cohen on the House Oversight Committee are Democrats Cummings, Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. Reps. Mark Meadows, Justin Amash, Paul Gosar and Virginia Foxx are some of several Republicans who will question Cohen.
Watch Cohen’s live testimony before Congress above.
With reporting from Alana Abramson.
