How Republicans Tried to Sabotage the Michael Cohen Testimony

Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday started with a bang. The opening statement delivered by President Trump’s former attorney and fixer was strewn with bombshell revelations, including claims that Trump knew about WikiLeaks plan to release Democratic National Committee emails hacked by Russia; that he was indirectly pressured by Trump to lie to Congress about negotiations surrounding a potential Trump Tower in Moscow; that Trump knew ahead of time that Donald Trump Jr. scheduled a meeting to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton provided by Russia; and more. Cohen elaborated on these claims, and on the general nature of how Trump conducted his business, as he fielded questions from committee members.

Not so much, though, in response to questions posed by Republican members of the House, who were more concerned in obstructing the proceedings and calling Cohen’s credibility rather than questioning his claims or learning anything about the president. In doing so, they reinforced what they made clear when they were in charge of the committee: that their allegiance lies not to the truth, but to protecting Trump at all costs. As Rep. James Raskin (D-MD) said while questioning Cohen, “[House Republicans] are not upset because you lied, they’re upset because you’ve stopped lying for the president.”

It began the instant the hearing started, when Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) asked committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) to postpone the proceedings because Cohen’s pre-written testimony was submitted Tuesday night rather than 24 hours before the hearing began. Committee members voted to let the hearing proceed, but Meadows — who was often yielded to by other Republican committee members — didn’t let up. At one point, he trotted out Lynn Patton, an official inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in an effort to prove that Trump isn’t racist, which Cohen claimed in his testimony. “She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, there is no way she would work for an individual who is racist,” Meadows said. “How do you reconcile the two of those?”

Meadows added that over the course of “over 300” conservations with the president, he never heard him utter a racist comment. “How do you reconcile that?” he asked again.

Link to tweet

Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) later demolished the stunt by Meadows. “I just want to put on the record, as being a black American and having endured the public comments of racism from the sitting president — as a black person, I can only imagine what’s being said in private,” she said. “To prop up one member of our entire race of black people and say that that nullifies that is truly insulting.”

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/michael-cohen-republicans-congressional-hearing-800819/