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“Michael Cohen, who worked as President Trump's fixer and personal attorney for 10 years, testified Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.” Axios
The left argues that Cohen has no reason to lie, and is deeply concerned by his revelations about Trump’s problematic and potentially criminal behavior.
“It’s true that Cohen is a crook and liar — after all, he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress — but he has every incentive to tell the truth now. Cohen has already been sentenced to three years in prison. He will not reduce his sentence any further with his testimony — but he could substantially add to it if he once again lied to Congress.”
Max Boot, Washington Post
“Cohen presents lawmakers with a difficult conundrum. He is a profligate liar, but he is also unusually well positioned to speak to Trump’s history and to the way his company operated. In fact, given the miasma of untruth that surrounded the Trump Organization, finding anyone who could speak to the company’s dealings who doesn’t have some lies on his or her record might be impossible… But the substance in Cohen’s opening statement, and the documents he’s produced to bolster it, seem to justify the decision to have him appear.”
David A. Graham, The Atlantic
Regarding the testimony itself, “If Stone did have a connection with Assange that allowed him to inform Trump about WikiLeaks’ actions, the distance between the candidate and Russia’s interference efforts is much shorter than realized… In November, CNN reported that Trump’s written responses to Mueller included a denial that Stone had told him about WikiLeaks. If Cohen’s testimony and CNN’s reporting are accurate, then Trump’s response was false.”
Philip Bump, Washington Post
“Put aside the issue of direct collusion—say, Trump huddling with Russian President Vladimir Putin to figure out what Democratic emails to hack—the public record already establishes that Trump and his gang are guilty of echoing and reinforcing the Kremlin’s we-didn’t-do-it disinformation efforts, even after they had information indicating Moscow was covertly intervening… Trump helped Putin’s cover-up. And that’s a crucial part of the story that should not be allowed to get lost.”
David Corn, Mother Jones
“On Trump himself, Cohen gave a familiar portrait of the president: mercurial, strangely charismatic, and driven by unvarnished self-interest above all else… ‘Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history,’ [Cohen] told the committee. ‘He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign—for him—was always a marketing opportunity.’ Making America great again was a racket, in other words, and the American people were the marks.”
Matt Ford, The New Republic
Some point out that “on the one hand, Cohen’s explanation of how Donald Trump operates was a devastating account of how the president of the United States knowingly distorts the truth in the service of his personal goals… On the other hand, Cohen’s statement made it clearer than ever just how difficult it would be to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors and to remove him from office…
“Declining to give the order directly is a time-honored way for leaders to do their dirty work, stretching back to the kings of the Bible and Henry II seeking the death of Thomas Becket. That’s the company Trump finds himself in. And no one impeached King David or Henry II.”
Noah Feldman, Bloomberg
“The two issues with which he is most often associated, support for a balanced budget and opposition to free trade, put him at odds with both of our major political parties. An old-fashioned, soft-spoken Southerner, he nevertheless held views on so-called ‘social issues’ that would be to the left of the mainstream of the Republican Party, both then and now. He was a fervent supporter of the Vietnam POW/MIA movement in the late '80s and early '90s, but he was not in any sense a hawk. Never mind 2003. Perot opposed the first war in Iraq in 1990… Perot's death should be mourned by all Americans who regret the fact that it is no longer possible to make reasoned, non-ideological arguments about questions of public import, and by the devolution of our political life into mindless partisan squabbling.”
Matthew Walther, The Week
The right does not find Cohen credible, but notes that he failed to corroborate several allegations against Trump.
The right does not find Cohen credible, but notes that he failed to corroborate several allegations against Trump.
“The fact that these hearings are going on this week, as President Trump works hard in Vietnam to make the world safer, shows how our political discourse has degenerated into a sleazy game of gotcha. Michael Cohen has already been convicted of lying to Congress. Yet now, to Congressional Democrats, he is their last, best hope of beating or at least punishing Donald Trump.”
Geraldo Rivera, Fox News
“When he was asked why he was testifying against the president, Cohen insisted it was to protest the ‘daily destruction of civility to each other.’ This from a man who warned journalists reporting on the sordid detail of Donald Trump’s checkered private life to ‘tread very f***ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f***ing disgusting.’”
Noah Rothman, Commentary Magazine
Many argue that “today's proceedings have been very embarrassing for Trump on a number of fronts, but in terms of new information that could imperil his presidency, it's been something of a high-drama dud. Indeed, in some important ways, there were Trump-helpful elements of Cohen's testimony… he said he had no evidence to offer on collusion. Cohen also rejected a discredited, explosive report [by Buzzfeed] about Trump suborning perjury, and helped discredit a major piece of the Steele dossier (which claimed that Cohen had traveled to Prague in pursuit of Russian collusion-related dealings).”
Guy Benson, Townhall
“‘Anybody who believes Julian Assange was able to phone Roger Stone from inside Ecuadorian Embassy with neither GCHQ, NSA, CIA, MI5 or FBI intercepting the call, is severely deluded,’ reads part of a tweet from British diplomat Craig Murray… The special prosecutor’s indictment of Stone in January made no mention of calls with Assange, and the allegation remains unproven. Furthermore, Cohen claimed that Trump was aware that Wikileaks was going to dump sensitive campaign material before it happened. As Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) pointed out, everyone had advanced knowledge. Assange had tweeted about it beforehand…
“Despite the media attention and the desire for a smoking gun, Cohen’s testimony is uncorroborated hearsay from an unreliable source. Even his most excitable allegations, if somehow proven true, do not violate federal law.”
Hunter DeRensis, The American Conservative
“If a president is to be impeached when an associate says he intuited that the president wanted him to lie under oath, there is no president following Trump who wouldn’t be vulnerable to the same charge and to impeachment under the same standard. That is why subornation of perjury has a high evidentiary standard and one that mustn’t be lowered just because liberals and Never Trumpers are determined to see Trump humiliated…
“If there is anyone in this country or on this planet still on the fence about Trump’s character, Cohen’s testimony likely sealed the deal on that question. But congressional Democrats didn’t get what they needed from Cohen to pursue impeachment in a manner that won’t seem simply like a hyper-politicized sop… It turns out [the] lawyer-fixer doesn’t have the goods.”
John Podhoretz, New York Post
“If Joe Biden can win his way through the primaries, he’s almost lab-engineered to beat Trump. He doesn’t cause Republican panic, he has the potential to connect with white working-class voters in a way that Hillary couldn’t in 2016, and he has a potential to connect better with black voters than Hillary did… if Biden emerges from [this] crucible, Trump will face a very different challenge than he faced in 2016.”
David French, National Review
“NBC and MSNBC embraced Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in the first debate of Democratic presidential candidates Wednesday night, treating her like the star of the show. The debate led off with Warren, who had a huge popularity advantage from the start… NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie started it off sounding more like Warren’s press secretary. ‘You have many plans – free college, free child care, government health care, cancelation of student debt, new taxes, new regulations, the breakup of major corporations,’ Guthrie said, before teeing up an economy question. Guthrie even used Warren’s plan to break up tech companies as the foundation for a question for Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey… the round-robin final comments also ended with Warren, as Maddow asked her for the ‘final, final statement.’ That let NBC bookend the entire debate with Warren and Warren.”
Dan Gainor, Fox News
“President Trump should be happy. As much as Warren is articulate, obviously intelligent, and energetically supported by Democrats, she would also be far easier to defeat than Joe Biden… Considering Trump's economy, the president is well placed to defeat Warren.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“The fans who avidly followed the men’s tournament certainly weren’t doing anything wrong. And it’s hard to argue that each of them had a moral obligation to be exactly as interested in women’s soccer. Even if we could stop them from watching the men more than the women, should we?…
“It’s tempting to answer that the fan choices aren’t innocent, they’re sexist. But since we can’t peek into their hearts, to say that definitively, we’d have to assume that men’s greater speed, strength and endurance definitely make nodifference to the sport’s quality. Fair enough, but then why do fans prefer to watch Megan Rapinoe play instead of the sedentary elderly who could presumably use some exercise? Alternatively, maybe pay should be equalized precisely because biology is unfair. But that seems to be an argument for curbing the pay of all top-level athletes, who have to hit the genetic lottery just to get on the field. It might be easier to focus on the distributions across society at large, rather than every individual industry, especially when fundamental biology is in play.”
Megan McArdle, Washington Post
There is now a Lucky Charms beer & it's 'magically ridiculous'.
Thrillist
