--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Welcome to Today, Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Today, we're talking about the big hearing with Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney. Andrew Prokop is here to break it down for us.
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--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Now, let's get to the Cohen hearing. Andrew, what was the big takeaway from today?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Now I want to welcome Mr. Cohen and thank him for participating in today's hearing. Mr. Cohen, if you would please rise and I will begin to swear you in. So this is probably the biggest hearing yet from the new House Democratic committee majorities. It's been in the works for weeks. And there have even been claims that President Trump was trying to stop Cohen from appearing at this hearing by making threats against his family on Twitter.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And thank you. And you may be seated. The microphones are sensitive. So Andrew Prokop, Vox, how did this event that's been in the works for weeks and, you know, there's been all sorts of drama leading up to it. How did it get started today?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: As all committee hearings do, the opening statements kicked off and set a partisan tone from the get-go. Democrats did chide Cohen for lying to Congress in the past as he has admitted doing and pleaded guilty to. while Republicans tried to attack his credibility and claim that nothing that he was saying about President Trump, the Trump business, potential Russian interference with the election could be trusted.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Mr. Chairman, here we go. Here we go. Your first big hearing, your first announced witness, Michael Cohen. I want everyone in this room to think about this. The first announced witness for the 116th Congress is a guy who is going to prison in two months for lying to Congress.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And then we get to Michael Cohen's statements. What does he say? So Cohen made an explosive set of allegations. Just to go through them really quickly, Cohen said that Trump encouraged him to lie about the Trump Tower Moscow project. He said that Trump was secretly talking with Roger Stone about WikiLeaks' plans to release Democrats' emails during the presidential campaign. He said that Trump made various racist comments. He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a shithole. This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States. And while we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: He claimed that Trump inflated and deflated his assets for various reasons, inflated his assets to get a higher ranking on Forbes' The Richest People in the Country list, deflated them to avoid property taxes. He claimed that at a charity auction, Trump got him to bid up the price of a portrait of Donald Trump to make sure that it was the most expensive item at the auction. He laid out more details of Trump's alleged involvements in encouraging to pay off women like Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who had alleged affairs with Trump during the campaign. He alleged that Trump was misleading the public about why he didn't serve in the military during the Vietnam War. He said that Trump enlisted him to threaten his past schools so that they wouldn't release his grades. And he alleged that maybe Trump knew about Donald Trump Jr.'s famous meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign to discuss dirt on Hillary Clinton.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And regarding the Mueller investigation, Cohen did say that questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. And I want to be clear. But I have my suspicions.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Some of that sounds familiar and some of that sounds new. I, for example, didn't know about the SAT scores. Was anything important revealed today?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I think there are a few important things. The biggest bombshell that stood out immediately is Cohen's claim that during the campaign, he overheard Donald Trump talking on the phone, on speakerphone, to Roger Stone, And that Stone told him that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was planning to release Democrats' emails in the coming days.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And this is a pretty big allegation because in the whole Russia investigation that has happened so far, Robert Mueller has charged various Russian intelligence officers for stealing these Democratic emails. But he has not really told the full story about who in Trump's orbit might have known about this operation or have been involved in it. So this is our first concrete allegation that Trump did have an inside tip at the very least that WikiLeaks had something coming and that this tip came from Roger Stone
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Cohen had a lot of time to ready himself for this testimony today How did he present himself during his opening statement?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So Cohen has been using all this to at least project the image that he's turning over a new leaf, that he now sees clearly what a terrible person Donald Trump is and how terrible working for him was. And that in the past, he did lie and intimidate people to try to protect Trump. But now he's saying he's seen the light essentially and facing a prison sentence soon of three years. And he's saying that now all he wants to do is to tell the truth.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. And I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your fixer, Mr. Trump.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: After his statement, there's questions from Democrats and Republicans. How did that play out?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Very early on, it became clear that the two sides had dueling partisan frames for the hearing. Democrats did chide Cohen for his past lies to Congress, which he has admitted. initially, but they pressed him for information, what he knew about President Trump, Trump's family, Russian interference with the campaign, hush money payments, and all other sorts of matters. So they were trying to surface information about Trump world that was potentially scandalous.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Republicans, on the other hand, took the tack of just trying to attack Cohen's credibility and discredit him, say that he had lied in the past, so he should not be trusted again. And they went after him on all sorts of fronts.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Mr. Chairman, we said we were in search of the truth. I don't believe that Michael Cohen is capable of telling the truth. So let's go back at this credibility. You want us to make sure that we think of you as a real philanthropic icon, that you're about justice, that you're the person that somebody would call at three o'clock in the morning. No, they wouldn't. Not at all.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: His remorse is non-existent. He just debated a member of Congress saying, I really didn't do anything wrong with the false bank things that I'm guilty of and going to prison for.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Mr. Jordan, that's not what I said. And you know that that's not what I said. I said I pled guilty and I take responsibility for my actions.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I guess what I'm saying is I've talked to the president over 300 times. I've not heard one time a racist comment out of his mouth in private. So how do you reconcile it? Do you have proof of those conversations? I would ask you to ask. Do you have tape recordings of those conversations? No, sir.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Well, you've taped everybody else. Why wouldn't you have a tape? That's also not true, sir. That's not true.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Cohen comes out saying, yes, I have lied, but I am here to tell the truth as a citizen, as an example to my children. I am going to prison. I don't want to be pardoned. I am here to fulfill my obligation to this body.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: and then for the next hours he is called a liar. How did he handle himself through all of that?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Cohen was a little sassy. At one point, Congressman Paul Gosar called him a pathological liar. You don't know truth from falsehood. Sir, I'm sorry. Are you referring to me or the president? Hey, this is my time. Are you referring to me or the president? When I ask you a question, I'll ask for an answer. Sure.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: He said, shame on you to Jim Jordan at one point. And yeah, he stood up for himself really, often attempting to portray the Republican attacks as partisan or purely motivated to protect Trump.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And at one point, Cohen pointed out that no one on the Republican side had yet asked him any questions about Trump. All they were doing was asking him about himself or trying to smear him.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: In the days leading up to this, I kind of figured that everyone would just see what they wanted today. You know, a vital informant, an insider, a convicted criminal, a liar, whatever you want to see in Michael Cohen today, you could see it. Is that exactly how this went? Did anything actually change?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So this is really the first time that someone who had a longtime relationship with Donald Trump, who has now become antagonistic to him, is testifying under oath and really offering adverse testimony to the president. in a very public setting.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So it's worth all the attention it's getting because Cohen really was at the top of the Trump organization and very close to Trump for a very long time. So, you know, you could try to dismiss everything he's saying as completely made up, but he was around for a lot and he knows a lot.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I did the same thing that you're doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years. And I can only warn people, the more people that follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Andrew, let's talk about the bigger picture here. What can we expect from the Democrats' subpoena power?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So, basically, Democrats now have the ability to set the agenda and to call witnesses who will testify under oath and be vulnerable to potential criminal charges should they lie.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Today was the first time they really used this power on this scale, how did it go? I think they succeeded in their goal, which was to have a lot of clips of Cohen saying bad things about the president playing on TV all day. And on podcasts. Oh, yes. On podcasts too. But TV is the main goal. Someday podcasts will have an equivalent level of influence. Ouch. But particularly regarding President Trump, who is known for constantly watching TV. He won't like this.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And are Democrats going to keep doing this for the next two years? Probably. I think where it really gets interesting is when they try to use their subpoena power to get administration officials to come testify or the administration to hand over documents This is something that Republicans rarely did when they controlled the House under Trump
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And Democrats think there a whole host of scandals sitting out there that have not been adequately investigated, and they want to find these documents. And who can they and can't they call? Are there limits to the subpoena power, the president, international figures, Putin? I don't think subpoenaing Putin would work very well, Probably not the president either. White House staffers are also generally agreed to be off limits. But cabinet officials and also former officials can potentially be called in for testimony.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: We've already seen Matthew Whitaker come in to testify. He was the acting attorney general. And we could also see people who have exited the Trump administration that might have a story to tell. People like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Those could be very high-profile hearings.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Andrew, let's talk about the president's reaction to all of this. He's been tweeting a lot about Michael Cohen and his family.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: In advance of Cohen's testimony, Trump has repeatedly brought up Cohen's father-in-law and suggested that there was some kind of illegality going on that Cohen doesn't want to talk about. And Cohen said that this was basically witness intimidation, threats against his family.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And when he goes on Twitter and he starts bringing in my in-laws, my parents, my wife, what does he think is going to happen? he's causing he's sending out the same message that he can do whatever he wants this is his country he's becoming an autocrat and hopefully something bad will happen to me on my children on my wife so that i will not be here and testify that's what his hope was it was to intimidate me
--:-- Andrew Prokop: We also had on tuesday representative matthew gates of florida republican he tweeted hey michael Cohen 212. Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot, dot, dot, dot. Gates later deleted this because it caused enormous controversy and various legal experts said that he may even have been guilty of trying to intimidate a witness from coming to testify before the House.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Andrew, thanks for breaking it all down for us.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Today, Explained is a production of Vox. Our producer is Jeff Geld. Our editors are Alex Sugiura and Liz Nelson. Our sound designer is Alex Sugiura. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie. And our theme song is by Hannis Brown.
--:-- [Music continues to play as the episode ends]
