Cohen Testimony So Far by Josh Marshall

Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall / 4h

Michael Cohen did about as well in this hearing as could be hoped. After all, he’s a convicted liar, a convicted felon. He pled guilty to crimes and he’s now admitted to all manner of misdeeds – some on his own behalf, some on Trump’s. His credibility is inherently weak. But he brought documents. Most importantly he seemed not to overstate his claims.

As I noted earlier, he actually defended Trump on a number of fronts, a fact that is worth considering in the context of the Republican minorities’ hearing preparation. While he had very damaging testimony about the Trump Moscow deal and Roger Stone’s alleged heads up about the Wikileaks dump, he did not have any silver bullet revelation. He gave many answers Democrats would likely have preferred went differently. He said he was aware of no evidence of “collusion”, though what that might mean isn’t clear. He said he’d never been to Prague. He said he had not met with any Russian representatives in Europe during his 2016 trip, which he said was family related. As I noted below, Cohen actually knocked down a number of rumors about Trump’s personal life.

None of this is to say it was a bust. What it did was make him more credible in his actual accusations. He was also helped by what was often comically bad preparation by Republicans. About half the question time from Republicans amounted to rants against Cohen or flogging him over a future book deal. They made the obvious points about his credibility. They played mostly to the President himself.

But it’s worth asking whether better preparation and research might have allowed them to help themselves more – indeed, helped the President more. Cohen said he was aware of no collusion. In its broad outlines, the on-going Trump Moscow negotiations were already known. There was actually a decent amount they could have used from him that was, if not helpful, then at least not incriminating from someone who supposedly was an insider’s insider.

Mainly what they accomplished was making him seem more sympathetic with their rants or, in some cases, easily debunked or contradicted claims.

Democrats were not terribly better. A few of the questioners shed new light. But most covered old ground without the precision that might have generated new information. This is why sometimes it’s worth having an outside counsel handling the questions or perhaps more coordination between the questioners. Part of me suspects the real serious work they expect tomorrow in the closed door Intelligence Committee hearing.

Beyond the big ticket claims in the prepared remarks, the big news today is more evidence that there are major on-going investigations into the President himself. Some of that clearly is tied to business dealings under the purview of the Southern District of New York. But there seems to be an active Russia probe as well.

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