(CNN) Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump -- from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet -- as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War.

And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the President's attorneys edited Cohen's 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

He says Trump never directly ordered him to lie to Congress but he believed he was carrying out an order given his interactions with Trump, who was making public statements about not having any business dealings with Russia.

In short, Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "conman" and a "cheat."

In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.

"Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign," Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony.

Trump responded, according to Cohen: "Wouldn't that be great."

Cohen's allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said the President's personal lawyers "reviewed and edited" his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization's pursuit of a massive project in Moscow.

The special counsel indictment of Roger Stone made no mention of direct contact between Stone and Assange.

Stone -- who has been indicted on charges of making false statements, witness tampering and obstructing justice -- has denied discussing the matter with Trump or having any such interactions with WikiLeaks. He is fighting his charges in court.

Cohen's opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower -- something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: "The meeting is all set."

Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump's son's comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians.

"I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval," Cohen will say. "So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary."

CNN reported in July 2018 that Cohen was willing to testify to the special counsel that Trump knew in advance about the planned meeting at Trump Tower.

The White House has attacked Cohen's credibility, calling him someone who cannot be trusted given he has already pleaded guilty to lying.

When asked for comment on Cohen's prepared testimony, the White House referred to press secretary Sarah Sanders' Tuesday statement on Cohen's testimony.

"Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements," Sanders said in that statement. "Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. 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."

According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters -- and made a host of racist statements.

He also provides new details suggesting Trump was heavily involved in the pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project in 2016.

"To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Tower negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it," Cohen will tell the committee. "He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project."

Cohen says that Trump did not "directly" tell him to lie to Congress. "That's not how he operates," Cohen says.

But he says that Trump would tell him and the public he has "no business" with Russia, even as he was negotiating the Moscow project.

"In his way, he was telling me to lie," Cohen says.

Cohen also says he's providing the panel with several documents to back up his allegations, including a check Trump wrote from his bank account to reimburse him for hush money payments to silence Stormy Daniels' story in 2016 about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels.

But in the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he's providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by the President from his personal bank account.

"The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws," Cohen will say.

Cohen also says he's providing the committee with copies of letters he wrote threatening Trump's high school, college and the College Board not to release his grades or test scores.

Moreover, Cohen says he has documentation showing Trump arranging a bidder at an auction to purchase a portrait of himself, which he later reimbursed the bidder for from his charitable organization.

And he provides information about Trump's decision to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Cohen was directed to avoid answering reporters' questions about the matter, he will say. Trump, who has long claimed his deferment was due to a bone spur, had no medical records to provide because there was no surgery, Cohen said.

"You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam," Cohen recalls Trump as saying.

In jarring testimony, Cohen also says Trump repeatedly made racist comments about African-Americans. While driving through a poor neighborhood in Chicago, Trump allegedly told Cohen that "only black people could live that way."

Cohen added that Trump said that African-Americans "would never vote for him because they were too stupid."

This story is breaking and will be updated.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen will testify to Congress on Wednesday that reimbursement checks issued to him for hush money payments involving women were signed by Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization chief financial officer, according to prepared testimony.

Cohen also plans to say that Trump himself signed a $35,000 check repaying him for “hush money I paid on his behalf,” Cohen will tell a House of Representatives’ committee. “Other checks to reimburse me for the hush money payments were signed by Don Jr. and Allen Weisselberg,” he will say.</s>HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The moment was meant to be a grand diplomatic triumph, a headline-dominating spectacle that could lead to the disarmament of a dangerous nation while delivering a vital political victory.

Instead, President Donald Trump's high-stakes summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Vietnam on Wednesday was in danger of being upstaged by a monumental betrayal unfolding half a world away in Washington.

Hours after Trump sat face-to-face with Kim in Vietnam, his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, sat before Congress and testified that his longtime boss was a "conman" and a "racist" who lied about having advanced knowledge of Wikileaks plans to release an opponent's stolen emails.

The spectacle was proof the Trump presidency has not yet exhausted its ability to surprise. As the president staged a historic summit abroad, a former confidante delivered testimony, both detailed and taunting, that threatened to humiliate the president and undermine his foreign policy goals.

The drama drew Trump's attention even amid sensitive denuclearization talks. Even before the hearing began, the president unleashed an attack on his former fixer, who has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and campaign finance violations and has been sentenced to three years. In a tweet, Trump downplayed Cohen's influence and claimed he was "lying in order to reduce his prison time."

Later, as he sat for a photo with Kim, Trump bristled at reporters' questions about Cohen. After the event, the White House took the extraordinary step of barring four U.S. reporters, including one from The Associated Press, from Trump's dinner with Kim, citing the "sensitivities" of the meeting.

Democrats consider Cohen their star witness as they kick off investigations into Trump's business practices, presidential campaign and embattled charitable foundation, including any payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016 election. He was initially due on Capitol Hill earlier this month, but his appearance was delayed. The president's son Donald Jr. accused Democrats of timing the hearing to interfere with Trump's trip abroad.

Cohen's testimony appeared designed to get under Trump's skin.

Reading from his prepared remarks, Cohen said Trump instructed him to threaten schools that Trump attended to prevent release of his grades or SAT scores. Cohen also described discussing the Vietnam War with his former boss, who didn't serve because he received a medical deferment for bone spurs. But Cohen says Trump could not provide any medical records and said: "You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam."

Added Cohen, addressing the president thousands of miles away: "I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now."

The hearing began just before midnight in Hanoi. It was not clear whether Trump stayed up late to watch. The president did spend some of the downtime at his hotel before his dinner with Kim watching the coverage of Cohen's prepared testimony, which was released the evening before his Capitol Hill appearance.

In the written testimony released in advance of the appearance, the president's former lawyer and fixer acknowledged he organized a cover up of potentially damaging allegations of infidelity, which Trump denies, and listened to Trump's racist remarks. Cohen claimed Trump was told by an associate, Roger Stone, that WikiLeaks had emails damaging to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's campaign and planned to release them. Trump has previously denied knowing anything about Stone's communications with WikiLeaks.

Cohen's testimony on the very day Trump met with Kim is a particularly acute moment of domestic humiliation for a president engaged in foreign diplomacy, but it wasn't the first, said Princeton University history professor Julian Zelizer.

Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, all endured trouble at home that hampered their foreign policy aims. Zelizer noted that Clinton ordered air strikes on Iraq in 1998 as an impeachment vote loomed in the House of Representatives. In that case, critics accused Clinton of staging a distraction — a concern that has been raised regarding Trump's moves with North Korea.

"The presidency doesn't stop, even when scandal hits," said Zelizer. "The one thing that's different is that he's tweeting. In '98 the president said, 'I'm focused on foreign policy,' and he tried to act presidential."

Added Zelizer of Trump: "I think he is going to connect the stories himself."

The president's two-day summit with Kim in Hanoi began with a highly choreographed greeting and photo-op, followed by a dinner, while the serious negotiating was set for Thursday. But Cohen shadow's reached across the Pacific, as Trump was asked at the summit by an Associated Press reporter if he had any response to Cohen's testimony.

The president shook his head and scowled.

And a short time later, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders approached the press and said that no reporters would be allowed into the dinner. That was an abrupt change from the initial plan issued by the White House, which had said that access would be granted to the usual 13-person group of reporters, known as the traveling press pool, who follow the president to every event.

Hours after Trump's day ended, Cohen remained present. Several White House staffers, including chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, retired to the hotel lobby for a drink. But on the TVs behind them, Cohen's testimony beamed in from thousands of miles away.

Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey in Washington contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON DC — Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone’s efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump — from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet — as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War.

And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the President’s attorneys edited Cohen’s 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

He says Trump never directly ordered him to lie to Congress but he believed he was carrying out an order given his interactions with Trump, who was making public statements about not having any business dealings with Russia.

In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.

“Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony.

Trump responded, according to Cohen: “Wouldn’t that be great.”

Cohen’s allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said the President’s personal lawyers “reviewed and edited” his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization’s pursuit of a massive project in Moscow.

Stone — who has been indicted on charges of making false statements, witness tampering and obstructing justice — has denied discussing the matter with Trump or having any such interactions with WikiLeaks. He is fighting his charges in court.

Cohen’s opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower — something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: “The meeting is all set.”

Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump’s son’s comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians.

“I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval,” Cohen will say. “So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary.”

The White House has attacked Cohen’s credibility, calling him someone who cannot be trusted given he has already pleaded guilty to lying.

When asked for comment on Cohen’s prepared testimony, the White House referred to press secretary Sarah Sanders’ Tuesday statement on Cohen’s testimony.

“Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements,” Sanders said in that statement. “Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. 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.”

According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters — and made a host of racist statements.

He also provides new details suggesting Trump was heavily involved in the pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project in 2016.

“To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Tower negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Cohen will tell the committee. “He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”

Cohen says that Trump did not “directly” tell him to lie to Congress. “That’s not how he operates,” Cohen says.

But he says that Trump would tell him and the public he has “no business” with Russia, even as he was negotiating the Moscow project.

“In his way, he was telling me to lie,” Cohen says.

ANALYSIS: What Michael Cohen needs to answer for

Cohen also says he’s providing the panel with several documents to back up his allegations, including a check Trump wrote from his bank account to reimburse him for hush money payments to silence Stormy Daniels’ story in 2016 about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels.

But in the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he’s providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by the President from his personal bank account.

“The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” Cohen will say.

Cohen also says he’s providing the committee with copies of letters he wrote threatening Trump’s high school, college and the College Board not to release his grades or test scores.

Moreover, Cohen says he has documentation showing Trump arranging a bidder at an auction to purchase a portrait of himself, which he later reimbursed the bidder for from his charitable organization.

And he provides information about Trump’s decision to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Cohen was directed to avoid answering reporters’ questions about the matter, he will say. Trump, who has long claimed his deferment was due to a bone spur, had no medical records to provide because there was no surgery, Cohen said.

“You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam,” Cohen recalls Trump as saying.

In jarring testimony, Cohen also says Trump repeatedly made racist comments about African-Americans. While driving through a poor neighborhood in Chicago, Trump allegedly told Cohen that “only black people could live that way.”

Cohen added that Trump said that African-Americans “would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”</s>United States President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday claimed that as a Republican presidential candidate in 2016, Trump knew beforehand that Wikileaks would release hacked Democratic National Committee emails. In a congressional testimony before the US House of Representatives committee, Cohen accused Trump of being “a racist”, “a conman” and “a cheat”.

The testimony is part of an investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller who is looking into ties between Trump’s campaign officials and Russia. It is also looking into other ways Russia may have influenced the 2016 presidential polls. Russia is also accused of attempting to meddle in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In December 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for multiple offences, including lying to the US Congress and for facilitating bribes to two women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. In August 2018, Cohen had pleaded guilty in a New York court to eight counts of tax crimes, making illegal campaign contributions and admitted that he made pre-election payments.

Cohen claimed that Trump’s longtime political advisor Roger Stone in July 2016 had told him that he had been speaking to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and that there would be “massive dump” of emails that would affect Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton’s, presidential campaign.

He also claimed that Trump wanted him to lie about a property deal in Moscow amid his presidential campaign for 2016 elections. “At the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen said. “In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

Cohen claimed that Trump had also asked him to pay off an adult film star, Stephanie Clifford, with whom Trump had had an affair, Reuters reported. Cohen submitted a copy of $130,000 wire transfer made during the closing days of the presidential campaign to Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels.

Cohen said while Trump has publicly courted white supremacists and bigots, “in private, he is even worse”. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole’,” he told the committee, according to BBC. “This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States.”

He claimed Trump had also said that black people would never vote for him “because they were too stupid”. Since becoming the president, Trump has become the worst version of himself, Cohen said, adding that Trump is “fundamentally disloyal”.

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great,” Cohen said. “He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.”

Meanwhile, the US president, who is currently in Vietnam to attend a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hit back at Cohen saying the lawyer was “lying in order to reduce his prison time”.</s>This is the prepared statement that Michael Cohen, President Turmp's former personal lawyer, delivered at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee:

Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today.

I have asked this Committee to ensure that my family be protected from Presidential threats, and that the Committee be sensitive to the questions pertaining to ongoing investigations. Thank you for your help and for your understanding.

I am here under oath to correct the record, to answer the Committee’s questions truthfully, and to offer the American people what I know about President Trump.

I recognize that some of you may doubt and attack me on my credibility. It is for this reason that I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable, and demonstrate that the information you will hear is accurate and truthful.

Never in a million years did I imagine, when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for Donald Trump, that he would one day run for President, launch a campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win. I regret the day I said “yes” to Mr. Trump. I regret all the help and support I gave him along the way.

I am ashamed of my own failings, and I publicly accepted responsibility for them by pleading guilty in the Southern District of New York.

I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty – of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him.

I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience.

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

I will explain each in a few moments.

I am providing the Committee today with several documents. These include:

A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account – after he became president – to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign;

Copies of financial statements for 2011 – 2013 that he gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank;

A copy of an article with Mr. Trump’s handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself – he arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs; and

Copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump’s direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

I hope my appearance here today, my guilty plea, and my work with law enforcement agencies are steps along a path of redemption that will restore faith in me and help this country understand our president better.

Before going further, I want to apologize to each of you and to Congress as a whole.

The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr. Trump.

Today, I’m here to tell the truth about Mr. Trump.

I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false – our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.

Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates.

In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.

There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me “How’s it going in Russia?” – referring to the Moscow Tower project.

You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

To be clear: Mr. 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 the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.

And so I lied about it, too – because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie. And he made it clear to me because his personal attorneys reviewed my statement before I gave it to Congress.

Over the past two years, I have been smeared as “a rat” by the President of the United States. The truth is much different, and let me take a brief

moment to introduce myself.

My name is Michael Dean Cohen.

I am a blessed husband of 24 years and a father to an incredible daughter and son. When I married my wife, I promised her that I would love her, cherish her, and protect her. As my father said countless times throughout my childhood, “you my wife, and you my children, are the air that I breathe.”

To my Laura, my Sami, and my Jake, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.

I have always tried to live a life of loyalty, friendship, generosity, and compassion – qualities my parents ingrained in my siblings and me since childhood. My father survived the Holocaust thanks to the compassion and selfless acts of others. He was helped by many who put themselves in harm’s way to do what they knew was right.

That is why my first instinct has always been to help those in need. Mom and Dad … I am sorry that I let you down.

As many people that know me best would say, I am the person they would call at 3 a.m. if they needed help. I proudly remember being the emergency contact for many of my children’s friends when they were growing up because their parents knew that I would drop everything and care for them as if they were my own.

Yet, last fall I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual #1.

For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump.

It is painful to admit that I was motivated by ambition at times. It is even more painful to admit that many times I ignored my conscience and acted loyal to a man when I should not have. 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.

For that reason, I have come here to apologize to my family, to the government, and to the American people.

Accordingly, let me now tell you about Mr. Trump.

I got to know him very well, working very closely with him for more than 10 years, as his Executive Vice President and Special Counsel and then personal attorney when he became President. When I first met Mr. Trump, he was a successful entrepreneur, a real estate giant, and an icon. Being around Mr. Trump was intoxicating. When you were in his presence, you felt like you were involved in something greater than yourself — that you were somehow changing the world.

I wound up touting the Trump narrative for over a decade. That was my job.

Always stay on message. Always defend. It monopolized my life. At first, I worked mostly on real estate developments and other business transactions. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump brought me into his personal life and private dealings. Over time, I saw his true character revealed.

Mr. Trump is an enigma. He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal.

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.”

He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign – for him – was always a marketing opportunity.

I knew early on in my work for Mr. Trump that he would direct me to lie to further his business interests. I am ashamed to say, that when it was for a real estate mogul in the private sector, I considered it trivial. As the President, I consider it significant and dangerous.

But in the mix, lying for Mr. Trump was normalized, and no one around him questioned it. In fairness, no one around him today questions it, either.

A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes.

As I earlier stated, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.

In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone.

Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries “shitholes.”

In private, he is even worse.

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.

While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.

And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.

And yet I continued to work for him.

As previously stated, I’m giving the Committee today three years of President Trump’s financial statements, from 2011-2013, which he gave to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to Forbes. These are Exhibits 1a, 1b, and 1c to my testimony.

It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

I am sharing with you two newspaper articles, side by side, that are examples of Mr. Trump inflating and deflating his assets, as I said, to suit

his financial interests. These are Exhibit 2 to my testimony.

As I noted, I’m giving the Committee today an article he wrote on, and sent me, that reported on an auction of a portrait of Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit

3A to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to

ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased

by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder,

despite keeping the art for himself. Please see Exhibit 3B to my testimony.

And it should come as no surprise that one of my more common responsibilities was that Mr. Trump directed me to call business owners, many of whom were small businesses, that were owed money for their services and told them no payment or a reduced payment would be coming. When I advised Mr. Trump of my success, he actually reveled in it.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. Lying to the First Lady is one of my

biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly – and she did not deserve that.

I am giving the Committee today a copy of the $130,000 wire transfer from me to Ms. Clifford’s attorney during the closing days of the presidential campaign that was demanded by Ms. Clifford to maintain her silence about her affair with Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit 4 to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign. I did that, too – without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.

I am going to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment from the American people before they voted a few days later.

As Exhibit 5 to my testimony shows, I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 – when he was President of the United States – pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me — the word used by Mr. Trump’s TV lawyer — for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year – while he was President.

The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. You can find the details of that scheme, directed by Mr. Trump, in the pleadings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

So picture this scene – in February 2017, one month into his presidency, I’m visiting President Trump in the Oval Office for the first time. It’s truly awe-inspiring, he’s showing me around and pointing to different paintings, and he says to me something to the effect of … Don’t worry, Michael, your January and February reimbursement checks are coming. They were FedExed from New York and it takes a while for that to get through the White House system. As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter.

When I say conman, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.

As I mentioned, I’m giving the Committee today copies of a letter I sent at Mr. Trump’s direction threatening these schools with civil and criminal actions if Mr. Trump’s grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without his permission. These are Exhibit 6.

The irony wasn’t lost on me at the time that Mr. Trump in 2011 had strongly criticized President Obama for not releasing his grades. As you can see in Exhibit 7, Mr. Trump declared “Let him show his records” after calling President Obama “a terrible student.”

The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees’ salaries in half – including mine – he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving “someone like him” that much money back.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not consider Vietnam Veteran, and Prisoner of War, Senator John McCain to be “a hero” because he likes people who weren’t captured. At the same time, Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.

Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.

He finished the conversation with the following comment. “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”

I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions.

Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, “Dirt on Hillary Clinton.” Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father’s desk – which in itself was unusual. People didn’t just walk behind Mr. Trump’s desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: “The meeting is all set.” I remember Mr. Trump saying, “Ok good…let me know.”

What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.

I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad’s desk that day — and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was talking about when he said, “That’s good … let me know.”

Over the past year or so, I have done some real soul searching. I see now that my ambition and the intoxication of Trump power had much to do with the bad decisions I made.

To you, Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, the other members of this Committee, and the other members of the House and Senate, I am sorry for my lies and for lying to Congress.

To our nation, I am sorry for actively working to hide from you the truth about Mr. Trump when you needed it most.

For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. 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.

I am going to prison and have shattered the safety and security that I tried so hard to provide for my family. My testimony certainly does not diminish the pain I caused my family and friends – nothing can do that. And I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump.

And, by coming today, I have caused my family to be the target of personal, scurrilous attacks by the President and his lawyer – trying to intimidate me from appearing before this panel. Mr. Trump called me a “rat” for choosing to tell the truth – much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government.

As Exhibit 8 shows, I have provided the Committee with copies of Tweets that Mr. Trump posted, attacking me and my family – only someone burying his head in the sand would not recognize them for what they are: encouragement to someone to do harm to me and my family.

I never imagined that he would engage in vicious, false attacks on my family – and unleash his TV-lawyer to do the same. I hope this committee and all members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will make it clear:

As a nation, we should not tolerate attempts to intimidate witnesses before Congress and attacks on family are out of bounds and not acceptable.

I wish to especially thank Speaker Pelosi for her statements in Exhibit 9 to protect this institution and me, and the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Adam Schiff and Chairman Cummings for likewise defending this institution and my family against the attacks by Mr. Trump, and also the many Republicans who have admonished the President as well.

I am not a perfect man. I have done things I am not proud of, and I will live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.

But today, I get to decide the example I set for my children and how I attempt to change how history will remember me. I may not be able to change the past, but I can do right by the American people here today.

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to answer the Committee’s questions.</s>Mr Trump tweeted that Cohen ‘did bad things’ as he tried to divert attention from the political crisis in Washington at his Vietnam summit with Kim Jong-un. Picture: Luong Thai Linh / Pool / AFP

Mr Trump tweeted that Cohen ‘did bad things’ as he tried to divert attention from the political crisis in Washington at his Vietnam summit with Kim Jong-un. Picture: Luong Thai Linh / Pool / AFP

Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has told Congress the President is a "racist" and "conman" and knew in advance about hacked Clinton emails supplied to WikiLeaks.

In explosive public testimony on Wednesday morning local time, Cohen claimed Mr Trump essentially directed him to lie about their work on a real estate project with Russia that continued well into the presidential campaign.

He also shared a cheque with the hearing, which he said his boss wrote from his personal bank account - after he became President - "to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign". He said Mr Trump told him to "lie to his wife about it."

The President, in Vietnam for a second nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, refused to comment on Cohen to reporters, but attack his one-time "fixer" on Twitter.

"Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately)," Mr Trump tweeted. "He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump."

A White House official told CNN the President was expected to stay up overnight in Hanoi to watch the testimony at his hotel, with Mr Trump at one point retweeting his earlier tweet calling Cohen a liar.

Cohen is testifying before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on the second of three much-anticipated days of hearings on Capitol Hill. Tuesday's first session at the Senate was held behind closed doors.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said scheduling the hearings while Mr Trump was in Vietnam was "a new low", while the GOP's ranking member of the committee Jim Jordan called the ex-lawyer a "patsy" for the Democrats.

Mr Graham told CNN Mr Trump was upset there were "duelling shows" - his Vietnam summit and Cohen's testimony.

They were certainly two Hollywood-style competing dramas overnight. And Cohen knew that, too. Despite a ferocious grilling by the panel, Cohen refused to commit to not pursuing a book or movie deal based on his work.

The testimony was briefly delayed as Republicans asked for a vote on delaying the testimony because the transcript had been submitted too late. The vote failed.

Cohen, 52, worked closely with Mr Trump for more than 12 years and became vice president of the Trump Organization, where he was the billionaire property magnate's behind-the-scenes "fixer". Last year, Cohen pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds for hush money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Mr Trump.

The President denies the liaisons. He tweeted that Cohen is "lying in order to reduce his prison time", even though he has already been sentenced.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in testimony in 2017 when he sought to cover up Mr Trump's pursuit of the Moscow real estate project during the presidential election campaign. Cohen, who blamed his "ambition and the intoxication of Trump power" for his "bad decisions", will soon start serving three years in prison.

"I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty - of the things I did for Mr Trump in an effort to protect and promote him," said Cohen. "I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience.

"I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat."

Cohen described Mr Trump as "a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great" in his damning testimony. "He had no desire or intention to lead this nation - only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the 'greatest infomercial in political history.'"

Cohen said he kept working on the Trump Tower project in Moscow well into the campaign and did not stop in January 2016 as he originally claimed. Mr Trump has insisted he had no dealings in Russia during the campaign.

Cohen said Mr Trump did not directly tell him to lie, but "would look me in the eye and tell me there's no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing" and "in his way, he was telling me to lie."

He stated that Mr Trump had advance knowledge through longtime adviser Roger Stone that WikiLeaks planned to publish hacked emails from presidential opponent Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It later emerged the emails were hacked by Russian operatives.

Cohen testified that Mr Trump, when he learned about the emails from Stone, said, "Wouldn't that be great?" The lawyer stated that he did not have direct evidence that Mr Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Ms Clinton, but had suspicions.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting in Mr Trump Tower in New York during which a representative of Russia's government offering dirt on Clinton met with Donald Mr Trump Jr and senior campaign officials.

But Cohen said that in 2017, as he read media coverage of the meeting, "something clicked in my mind." He said he then recalled a meeting with Mr Trump in early June 2016 in which his son Donald Trump Jr walked into the room, approached his father and said in a low voice "the meeting is all set".

Cohen - who admits he was "mesmerised" by his boss - added: "I remember Mr Trump saying, 'OK, good ... Let me know.'"

The former lawyer said Mr Trump had always told him his son had "the worst judgment of anyone in the world" and Cohen did not believe Donald Jr would ever a big meeting without first checking with his father.

"I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr Trump's knowledge and approval," added Cohen. "So, I concluded that Don Jr was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative."

Cohen shared three years of Mr Trump's financial statements and a scribbled note he claimed showed Mr Trump wanted Cohen to arrange for someone to bid on a portrait of him, before reimbursing the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation.

Cohen produced copies of letters he says he wrote at Mr Trump's direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

"It was my experience that Mr Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes."

Cohen said Mr Trump also told him to give vague answers when questioned about the bone spur that apparently prevented him from serving in the Vietnam War, commenting: "You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam."

When Barack Obama was President, Cohen claimed, Mr Trump "asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a 's**thole'."

The White House has been focused on damage control, pointing out that Cohen is headed to prison for three years for his crimes and labelling him a convicted liar.

"Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements," said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders from Hanoi. "Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same

"It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word."

The former lawyer also asked the committee "to ensure that my family be protected from Presidential threats", after delaying his testimony following Mr Trump's repeated verbal onslaughts on Cohen and his father-in-law.

He claimed his family had been victims of "personal scurrilous attacks" and that he had been smeared as "a rat" by the President, "much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government."</s>On one side of the screen, President Trump sits pensively, leaning forward, tapping his fingers together. Next to him, a smiling Kim Jong-un takes his seat.

Behind the US and North Korean leaders are a row of their nations’ flags, interspersed, a screen of white, red, and blue. They’re at the start of a summit that American officials hope will lead to curbs on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and perhaps to eventual denuclearization.

On the other side of the screen sits Michael Cohen. The president’s former lawyer is impassive, for the most part, as he testifies before a congressional committee that he believes Mr. Trump to be a “con man” and a “cheat.”

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He then gets into a tense, almost-shouting match with Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who’s defending the president. Mr. Cohen has little left to lose – he’s already going to jail.

Just another day, another routine clashing of news images in the split-screen presidency of the 45th chief executive of the United States.

The use of “split-screen” as an image to describe the clashing events and themes of this Washington era is almost a cliché at this point, of course. It’s an obvious way to describe an administration that’s saturated in events and a country that’s divided on partisan lines.

The president takes an action. His critics produce a reaction. As events, they’re separate, different sides of the wide screen. But they’re also intertwined, each one altering, at least a bit, the meaning of the other.

It’s interesting that during the campaign, Trump warned that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have looked like this, as well. “Crooked” Hillary would have been the subject of so many investigations it would hobble her administration, he said.

Instead that’s been the story of Trump, says Chris Edelson, an assistant professor of government in the school of public affairs at American University. Trump has been dogged by criticism that inevitably occupies his mind and takes up some of his time.

“That’s been his entire presidency, and I expect it likely will be his presidency for the foreseeable future,” Professor Edelson says.

Some of Trump’s biggest split-screen days of clashing news have involved foreign travel. He was departing on an Asia tour in November 2017 when special counsel Robert Mueller dropped his first big indictments, against ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort and others.

The president was at Windsor Castle with Queen Elizabeth last July when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee computers.

But Wednesday was perhaps the most head-swiveling split-screen day yet. Trump greeted Mr. Kim with a public embrace at the beginning of a two-day summit. Then Cohen took the stage in a public hearing before the House Oversight Committee, in the first big event scheduled by the chamber’s new Democratic majority.

Cohen appeared, if not relaxed, at least focused and effective in making the points he wanted to make. Trump had not expected to win, he said, but had thought running for president a great way to market himself and his company.

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make the country great,” said Cohen.

The president’s former lawyer showed lawmakers a $35,000 check signed by Trump in August 2017 that he said was partial reimbursement for the hush money paid to adult actress Stormy Daniels.

Cohen claimed to have overheard a phone call to Trump from former associate Roger Stone alerting the then-candidate that Wikileaks was about publish emails that would damage Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Cohen described a whispered conversation between Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in which the son may have told his father about an upcoming Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russians who had Clinton “dirt” to offer.

Taking a break from the proceedings, Oversight Committee member Rep. Jim Cooper (D) of Tennessee said in an interview that much of Cohen’s testimony was very predictable but also very important.

“I hope the nation is watching because this is a very valuable insight to the way the president operated primarily before he was president, but also some during the presidency,” says Representative Cooper.

Republican defenders of the president on the panel felt otherwise, and pointed out that Cohen has already been convicted once of lying to Congress, among other crimes, and is positioning himself to write a book and perhaps engage in profitable television ventures. But not all GOP members of the panel were harshly negative about the hearing. In a brief interview, Rep. Justin Amash (R) of Michigan says a lot of it was partisan theater, but the panel heard some new things and maybe some new things that could be corroborated. At one point, Cohen said he had been intoxicated by working for Trump. Representative Amash, asked whether he thinks Republican Trump defenders have been similarly intoxicated, says he thinks that’s true. “A lot of Republicans have abandoned their principles for the president, and I similarly think a lot of Democrats are abandoning their principles because of the president,” the Michigan Republican says. Can domestic scandals “taint” presidential achievements in foreign affairs? That’s happened in the past, in the sense that presidential opponents have portrayed White House actions taken at moments of domestic policy stress as attempts to distract voters. President Bill Clinton, for instance, launched cruise missile strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan only three days after testifying in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Critics charged Mr. Clinton was acting to try and get the Lewinsky matter off front pages. That’s not really a fair charge, says Edelson of American University. In general, chief executives have been able to compartmentalize their serious decision-making. “That’s not fair to a president. It’s not a good thing for the country,” he says. In regards to Trump, the nation needs to resolve the issues and allegations swirling around his actions, from hush-money payments to Ms. Daniels to the many items related to special counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation. “It’s hard for everyone to have this going on,” says Edelson. Besides Clinton, one other US chief executive who faced a serious split-screen, domestic-international situation was Richard Nixon. In 1973, as the Watergate scandal gained steam, the president increased his diplomatic efforts, including superpower nuclear negotiations. In June of that year, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev visited Washington. Nixon and he made important progress toward a second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and signed a number of other secondary accords. Transcripts of their discussions show jovial, almost friendly chats. Neither brought up the subject of Watergate allegations. On Monday, June 25, 1973, the lead story of The New York Times dealt with the end of the summit and the hopes of Nixon and Brezhnev for world peace. Across the page, above the fold, was a story of almost equally prominent play. “Dean On Stand,” it said. Nixon’s former counsel John Dean was appearing before the Senate Watergate Committee. It was a key moment in the scandal. By August, Nixon had resigned.
• Parties over? Republicans, Democrats, and the Howard Schultz challenge
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• Link up with us!</s>President Donald Trump is not crazy. Nor is he dumb or paranoid. Certainly he is not in over his head. Is he a liar? Nope. And he is not addicted to TV either.

Who says so? None other than Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer and fixer who eviscerated Trump in three days of testimony before Congressional committees this week.

Cohen's comments were in a book proposal that the jail-bound disbarred attorney was shopping around in the weeks before the FBI raided his offices last year. DailyMail.com has reviewed a copy of that proposal.

At the time he had nothing but good things to say about his boss who had entered the White House a little more than a year earlier.

Cohen was pushing a book with the working title 'Trump Revolution: From The Tower to The White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump,' that he proposed to write.

He sent his book to several potential publishers last year, and one, Hachette, reportedly was willing to pay him three-quarters of a million dollars for his wise words.

But Cohen, who is due to start a three-year prison term in May for crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress and making false statements, thought he could do better and continued to seek more money, DailyMail.com can reveal.

'I doubt he was offered $750,000,' one publishing executive told DailyMail.com. 'If he was, he was a fool not to take it.

'Everything he wanted to say about Trump was positive,' added another executive who discussed the deal with Cohen.

'Even in our meeting he was glowing with praise for the president.'

The executive said Cohen did not tell him whether Trump knew about the planned book.

The deal with Hachette's conservative imprint Center Street eventually fell apart after Cohen was charged with the crimes that will now land him in prison.

In the proposal, Cohen, now 52, said his most important job in his role as special counsel to the Trump Organization was 'looking out for Mr. Trump and his family.'

He added: 'Most of my work took place behind the scenes. Unless it was the sort of situation that required me to come through the front door with a wrecking ball, that is – in which case my involvement was pretty obvious.

'No issue was too big, too sticky or too oddball for me to tackle. I saw it all, handled it all. And still do.'

He started his proposal with a list of unflattering barbs that have been thrown at Trump since he became Commander-in-Chief. 'Crazy'; 'Dumb'; 'Paranoid'; 'In Over His Head'; 'Liar'; 'Addicted to TV'; 'Hates the Media'.

'All of these things have been said about my longtime boss, Donald J. Trump,' Cohen added. 'None of it is true. Except maybe that last one – about the media. Trump does believe that reporters are out to get him, and for a very good reason. Many of them are.

'That doesn't make him paranoid,' wrote Cohen. 'That makes him a realist.'

The nearest Cohen came to criticizing Trump at the time was when he admitted he is 'an exceedingly tough boss,' adding that could clearly be seen by the 'revolving door' at the White House, which by the time of writing had included the departures of national security advisor Michael Flynn, press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus, communications director Anthony Scaramucci; chief strategist Steve Bannon, deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland, health and human services secretary Tom Price, communications director Omarosa Manigault Newman, FBI director James Comey and – just days before he wrote his proposal - McFarland's successor Dina Powell.

Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and staff secretary Rob Porter would be gone just days later.

Cohen said in his proposal that he was the ideal person to write a book about Trump, which he said would be told 'by the guy who actually witnessed this stuff first-hand and lived to tell about it.'

'(F)irst and foremost, I think I have a unique point-of-view to offer,' he bragged. 'One that is based not on headlines, brief encounters or armchair analysis from afar, but on my own up-close and personal observations and experiences with Donald Trump and his family over the past dozen years.

'That so many people are confused by Trump is not surprising to me. His world is a highly complex and nuanced place; it also has clear and very specific rules of order. Most people don't understand that – or him – at all. That's not really their fault. Because here's the thing about Trump: Despite his hyper-public profile Donald Trump is -- and has always been -- an enigma to most people.

'That is by design, and I'll be talking a lot about that, as well,' he said.

Cohen promised chapters on both first lady Melania Trump and Trump's children, as well as 'the unfortunate saga' of Stormy Daniels, the porn star to whom Cohen paid $130,000 – money which he told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday that Trump had repaid him in a series of $35,000 checks.

Cohen wrote his proposal on January 24, 2018, less than three weeks after the publication of the first critical book about the Trump presidency, Michael Wolff's 'Fire And Fury,' which claimed the White House was a chaotic place where '100% of the people around him' believe Trump is unfit for office.

His book proposal was in stark contrast to his words to the oversight committee and to two other Congressional panels which he addressed in private. On Wednesday he said Trump 'is a racist, he is a con man and he is a cheat.'

'I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,' he added. 'My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything: my family's happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation, and soon my freedom.

'I will not sit back say nothing and allow him to do the same to the country.'

He even made the startling claim that if Trump loses next year's election 'there may be no peaceful transfer of power.'

But in early 2018, Cohen was full of praise for the man he had served for a dozen years. He said he would use the book to 'unravel and explain' mysteries that surround the president. Those would include: 'Trump's communications style, management style, negotiating tactics, combat profile, Twitter battles and family dynamics. Along with the Russia probe and the revolving door at the White House.

'I have a lot to say about all of this stuff, with the understanding that there are some things I simply can't talk about because I am, as I said at the outset, Trump's longtime lawyer. But there's plenty I can talk about, so here I am.'

And he signed off on his proposal on a highbrow note. This, after all, would not be a downmarket tell-all, but a serious tome which would help people see what makes Trump tick.

'By offering my point-of-view, it is my sincere hope that I can help close or at least narrow the knowledge gap,' he wrote. 'For reporters, who have the important job of covering Trump; for lawmakers, who need to work constructively with Trump to get things done for our country; for global leaders who aspire to work collaboratively with America; for supporters, who have faith and put Trump into the White House; for critics, whose continued vigilance helps Trump and the Republican party get better at their jobs - Democrats, too. And for anybody else, no matter what your party or affiliation, who has an interest in gaining a better understanding of the world, ways and methodology of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.'</s>WASHINGTON -- A friend on a long car trip took the opportunity of listening to conservative talk radio along the way. He reported: "Right-wing talk radio is using language that can't get much more apocalyptic. It's all about coups, and Mueller as a Soviet-style prosecutor, and the left wanting to destroy America, and off-the-charts rage at the media."

The ruling ideology of the Trump era, it seems, is not populism but catastrophism. Trump's intellectual vanguard, though puny in number, makes up for it in hyperventilation.

When Michael Anton dubbed the 2016 presidential contest the "Flight 93 election," in which conservatives had to "charge the cockpit" or die, Donald Trump's supporters did not dismiss it as the poorly written, racially tinged, half-baked, over-caffeinated effusions of an adolescent intellect. Instead, they took it as reporting from the culture war's front lines

In the run-up to the 2018 midterms, Civil War analogies abounded. Robert Curry of the Claremont Institute, for one, found them lacking in urgency. A Democratic victory, he predicted, would transform America "perhaps even more radically" than a Democratic victory against Abraham Lincoln in 1864. So, an even bigger deal than the failure of the Thirteenth Amendment?

Court philosopher Lou Dobbs has urged the president "to declare a national emergency, and simply sweep aside the recalcitrant left in this country." Of what would such sweeping consist? Well, you can't have a revolution without breaking a few eggheads.

The President of the United States himself argues that he is the victim of a plot by the "deep state" -- a conspiracy he locates in any part of government that refuses to affirm and demonstrate loyalty to his person.

It is worth noting, first of all, that all these comparisons and conspiracies are utter rubbish -- the work of people who monetize hysteria or benefit from ignorance and paranoia. The current investigations targeting the Trump administration are not partisan witch-hunts. They are the natural result when a leader surrounds himself with crooks, cronies and conmen. Trump's inner circle -- including, at various points, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone -- constitutes a sliminess hall of fame.

Nothing is more damaging to the Trump administration than the application of Occam's Razor. Those who employ full-time "fixers" generally have things to fix. Those who regard financial transparency as the violation of a legal "red line" generally have something they want to hide. Those who regularly hire hucksters are, well, you know.

Another problem with apocalyptic language is that the comparisons don't allow for limits. If we are really facing a coup against the Constitution, then why not use the military to impose Dobbs' conservative police state? If we are really involved in a civil war of good against evil, why not seek unconditional surrender of the enemy? If we are really facing a subversive and sinister deep state, why not use the Marines, or the Secret Service, or ICE to clean out the subversion?

The problem, of course, is that of all these comparisons are absurd, dangerous, inappropriate metaphors, used by adults who should know better. What we have in this country are serious political disagreements, which can only be decided through political means. We are not really on a hijacked plane, or in a bloody civil war, or dealing with a coup, or hunting witches, or facing the apocalypse.

If there is a danger that impressionable people might confuse vivid metaphors with reality, then there is one more risk that should be named. One of the easily led people consuming these deceptions sits in the Oval Office. Political commentators once speculated whether Henry Kissinger was manipulating President Richard Nixon. Now we are left to wonder if Trump is unduly influenced by the cast of Fox and Friends. The president is a Fox News addict, who sometimes prefers the views of ideological balloon figures to the testimony of government experts. We saw this problem lead to the longest partial government shutdown in history. At another point, it threatened the updated Patriot Act. And Trump seems to believe, against all evidence, that the situation on the southern border is a national emergency.

It is a sad thing when a president manipulates the public. It is a sad and scary thing when the president is manipulated by people with a vested interest in cultivating crisis.

The worst danger of civil war or subversion comparisons is that Trump might actually believe them. And act on them.
U.S. President Donald Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.