“Everybody’s job at the Trump Organization was to protect Trump”
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, described in intimate detail Wednesday how his onetime boss ran his real estate empire and conducted his personal business — from the intense loyalty he demanded of his top advisers, to deploying Trump Organization employees to physically intimidate his enemies, to fudging his financial statements whenever it suited his interests.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee warned their Democratic counterparts that Cohen is someone whose testimony could not be trusted — Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the panel’s top Republican, called him an “admitted liar.” Cohen will report to prison in May for a three-year sentence after pleading guilty last year to one count of lying to Congress and multiple counts of financial fraud.
That warning did not stop the majority from questioning Cohen for roughly six hours Wednesday, as the former Trump fixer implicated the president, his two oldest sons, and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg in running an operation rife with financial fraud, deceit and intimidation tactics.
View the complete February 28 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.