Iran Press/America: Donald Trump's longtime lawyer and fixer accused him on Wednesday of an expansive pattern of lies and criminality, offering a damning portrayal of life inside the president’s orbit where he said advisers sacrificed integrity for proximity to power.
Michael D. Cohen, who represented Trump for a decade, laid out for Congress for the first time a series of deceptions by the president. He charged that Trump lied to the public about business interests in Russia, lied to reporters about stolen Democratic emails and told Cohen to lie about hush payments to cover up sexual misconduct, New York Times reported.
"He is a racist. He is a cheat," Cohen said of the US president.
The hearing took place while the president was halfway around the world in Vietnam for a meeting with North Korea's leader.
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Through some five hours of testimony, Cohen described his years working for Donald Trump as a trip into a world of deceit in which the now-disbarred lawyer ignored his own conscience to get close to a magnetic person of power.
"Sitting here today, it seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong," Cohen said.
Cohen laid out a series of actions by Trump that bolster previous accusations and news stories, presenting documents to corroborate his account, including copies of checks issued by the president or his trust that he said were reimbursements for $130,000 in hush payments made to 'Stormy Daniels', a film actress who alleged an affair with Trump.
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In private business, Cohen said he rationalized Trump’s dishonesty as 'trivial', but as president, he said, "I consider it significant and dangerous."
Cohen told lawmakers that Trump personally monitored negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, asking about it 'at least a half-dozen times' between January and June 2016, even while running for president.
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"Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project," Cohen said. 103/211/207
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