Disgraced Lawyer Michael Cohen Tries to Smear Trump During his Congressional Testimony

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Disbarred Lawyer Michael Cohen is a convicted felon and an admitted liar. So how can we ever really trust him when he claims to come clean before Congress? Bloomberg’s Matt Goldman dives deep into the science of lying.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement calling Cohen a “disgraced felon” and a “convicted liar” whose every word should be disregarded, who told Cohen to “leave lying to the professionals.”

“You probably think you can step up to the microphone and lie like it’s the easiest thing in the world,” she said. “Well, you should try doing it each and every day, and then tell me how easy it is.”

Sanders made the comment in response to reports that Cohen is planning to accuse Trump of criminal conduct while in office in connection with hush money payments made to an adult film actress during a Wednesday appearance before the House Oversight Committee.

“Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements,” Sanders said in a statement sent to Newsweek on Tuesday.

“Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same,” the White House press secretary said. “It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies.”

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen planned to accuse Trump of breaking the law while in office, citing an unnamed source familiar with the lawyer’s planned testimony.

The source told the news outlet that Cohen planned to detail the “lies, racism and cheating” he witnessed Trump engage in. The president’s former confidant is also expected to make public some of the president’s private financial statements and to testify that Trump inflated or deflated his net worth on occasion “for business and personal purposes,” including to avoid property taxes, according to The Journal. The news outlet, however, made it clear that it had yet to see these statements.

Cohen’s testimony before Congress comes more than a year after it was first reported that he had paid $130,000 in October 2016 to buy the silence of former adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, over an affair she was alleged to have had with Trump.

Cohen has since pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws over payments made in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election to women alleging to have had affairs with Trump, including Daniels, as well as to tax and bank crimes.

In a separate case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the timeline of discussions over a potential deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, which investigators said had continued into 2016.

Meanwhile, A Republican congressman taunted Michael Cohen with the schoolyard chant of “Liar, liar, pants on fire” — and a poster with the same message was displayed to the audience during Cohen’s Wednesday testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

The New York Post reports that during his questioning of President Trump’s former personal lawyer and self-admitted “fixer,” US Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) ripped into Cohen’s credibility, telling him point-blank: “You’re a pathological liar. You don’t know truth from falsehood.”

Cohen shot back, “Sir, I’m sorry. Are you talking about me or the president?”

The sarcastic response led Gosar to fume, “This is my time,” and he angrily instructed Cohen, “When I ask a question, I’ll ask for an answer.”

Gosar wrapped up his questions by telling Cohen: “Look at the old adage our moms taught us: ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’”

Source: Newsweek, Bloomberg