did or compromised with a foreign adversary in the months before the election yes then your experience with the president the knowledge of his relationship with mr stone do you have reason to believe that the president explicitly or implicitly authorized mr stone to make contact with wiki leaks and to indicate the campaign's interest in the strategic release of these illegally hacked materials i'm not aware of that was mr stone a free agent reporting back to the president what he had done or was he an agent of the campaign acting on behalf of the president and with his apparent authority you know he was a free agent a free agent that was reporting back to the president what he had done correctly frequently reached out to mr trump and mr trump was very happy to take his calls it was a free service. roger stone says he never spoke with mr trump about wiki leaks how can we co-opt corroborate what you are saying i don't know but i suspect that the

special counsel's office and other. government agencies have the information that you're seeking to move on to a little later in two thousand and sixteen a major leagues happens hours after the access hollywood tape is released do you believe or are you aware of mr trump coordinating or signalling for this e-mail dump. i'm unaware of that i actually was not even in the country at the time of the billy bush tape i was in london visiting my daughter knowing how mr trump operates with his winning at all costs mentality do you believe that he would cooperate or collude with a foreign power to win the presidency is he capable of that. cause and so much speculation him it would be unfair for me to understand you have a tremendous amount of experience mr trump provides it is all about winning. and it will do what is necessary in your to win and spirits. would he

have the potential to cooperate or collude with a foreign power to win the presidency at all costs yes based on what you know would mr trump or did he lie about colluding and coordinating with the russians at any point during the campaign so as i stated in my testimony. i wouldn't use the word colluding. was there something odd about the back and forth praise with president putin yes but i'm not really sure that i can answer that question in terms of collusion i was not part of the campaign i don't know what the other conversations that mr trump had with other individuals there's just so

many dots that all seem to lead to the same direction only before my time expires mr cohen the campaign and the entire trump organization appeared to be filthy with russian contact there are russian business contacts there are campaign russian russian contacts there are lies about all of those contacts and then we have roger stone informing the president just before the democratic national convention that he's done that wiki leaks was going to drop documents in the public arena that we knew at that point were hacked and stolen by russia from the democratic national committee gen ladies time has expired you may answer our my question is really given all those connections. is it likely that donald trump was fully aware and had every intent of working with russia to help make sure that

he could win the presidency at all costs so let me say that this is a matter that's currently being handled by the house select and the senate select intelligence committees and so i would rather not answer that specific question other than just to tell you that mr trump's desire to win would have him work with anyone and one of the thing that i had said in my statement is that when it came to the trump tower moscow project it was worth hundreds of millions of dollars and we never expected to win the election so this was just business as usual thank you it's going great of tennessee thank you miss him thank you chairman ranking member jordan the chairman of this committee have promised members of the american people

a fair and open process yet the democrats have vastly limited the scope of this hearing they've issued a gag order to try to tell members of this committee what we can and cannot talk about my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that they want the truth that they want transparency and fair oversight yet the democrats witness to testify before congress today is none other than a scorned demand there's going to prison for lying to congress let that sink in he's going to prison for lying to congress and he's the star witness to congress if you read the sentencing report on mr cohen words like deceptive and greedy are scattered throughout that report it paints a picture of a narcissist a bully who cannot tell the truth whether it's about the president or about his own personal life but today he's the majority party star witness. if the democrats were after the truth they'd have an honest person here testifying and if they were really after the truth they'd not restrict the questioning to just

a few topics but let's let's take a look at those restricted topics mr chairman the first topic in your limited scope that i can ask mr cohen is about the president's debts but mr chairman didn't mr cohen plead guilty to lying to banks about his personal finances so we're asking a guy going to jail for lying about his debts to comment about the president's debts he's the expert mr chairman your next couple of topics say that i can ask mr cohen about the president's compliance with financial disclosures and campaign finance laws but did mr cohen on two occasions break campaign finance law with his own donations so again the majority party star witness on the president's compliance is a guy who broke compliance last himself mr chairman you graciously allow us to ask questions of mr cohen on the president's dealings with the i.r.s.

and tax law your star witness here broke the law with regards to the i.r.s. at least five times he pled guilty on cheating on his taxes lying to the i.r.s. he's the best witness you've got next up with the permission of the chairman i get to ask mr cohen about his perspective on the president's business dealings let me get this straight the witness lied to multiple financial institutions to get loans to pay off other loans just to keep him self afloat and he's going to be the expert on business practices obviously mr chairman the witness might produce documents that he suggests incriminates the president yet he lies to banks all of those laws were done on fraudulent documents documents that he forged nothing he says are produces has any credibility. apparently he even lied about delivering his own child which his wife had to correct the record ladies and

gentleman how on earth is this witness credible with all the lies and deception the self-serving fraud it begs the question what is the majority party doing here no one can see this guy's credible he will say whatever he wants to accomplish his own personal goals he's a fake witness and his presence here is a travesty i hope the american people see through this i know the people back in tennessee will end with that statement sir i have a few questions the witness with your loss of your law license think you mentioned in your opening statement that you had been disbarred what is your source of income in the future i don't expect i'm going to have a source of income when i'm in federal penitentiary what. is there a book deal come in or anything like that i have no book deal right now in the process i have been contacted by many including for television the movie if you

want tell me who you would like to play you are more than happy to nail down i'm sure that i will write to turn around and just to correct your statement on me no let me ask you another question no i only have a limited amount no end of one point one quick question who paid your expenses to be here today who's paid my expense to be here today i paid my expenses mr chairman i'd like to yield the remaining amount time to the ranking member mr cohen how many times you talk to the special counsel's office. seven did they talk to you at all in preparation for today's hearing between the seven times you talked to him prior to your sensing have you any conversations with the special counsel's office between sentencing him today and sort of i don't understand your question you talked him seven times that's in the sentencing. memorandum that were in front of the court back in december what i'm asking is how many times you talk to the special counsel's office since then. up to today's appearance here in congress

gentlemen time has expired you may answer the question no that one but i'm sorry i don't have the answer to that snowy wasn't welcome back thank you mr chairman and mr cohen in your ten years of working for donald trump did he control everything that went on in the trump organization and did you have to get his permission in advance and report back after every meeting of any importance yes my was there was nothing that happened at the trump organization from whether it was in response as the daily beast story that you referred to ranking member that did not go through mr trump with his approval and sign off as in the case of the payments how many how

many times did the president michael. ask you are direct you to try to reach settlements with women in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen and i'm sorry ma'am i don't i don't have the answer to that i'd have to go back and try to recollect it's certainly the two that we know about. and. why why do you think the president did not provide the accurate information in his twenty seventeen hour financial disclosure form what was he trying to hide corrected other forms but it incorrect is the payments on the reimbursement of the funds that i extended on his behalf but can you elaborate more but going back into the story as i stated when we alan weisenberg and i left the office we went to his office in order to make the determination on how that money was

going to be wired to the iola the interest on the lawyers account for keith davidson in california i had asked alan to use his money didn't want to use mine and he said he couldn't and we then decided how else we can do it he asked me whether or not you know anybody who wants to have a party at one of his clubs that could pay me instead or somebody who may have wanted to become a member of one of the golf clubs and i also don't have anybody that was interested in that and it got to the point where it was down to the wire it was either we somebody wire the funds and or just the life rights to the story from mr clifford or it was going to end up being sold to television and that would have embarrassed the president and it would have interfered with the election but

the president has never amended it was seventeen form to this day and while you're facing the consequences of going to jail he is not well i believe that they amended a financial disclosure form and there's a footnote somewhere buried. i don't recall specifically what it says there is a footnote buried somewhere. can you describe michael to the american people catch and kill some catching kill is a method that exists when you're working with a news outlet in this specific case it was a am i national choir david dylan howard and others where they would contact me or mr trump or someone and state that there's a story that's particularly aiding out there that you may be interested in and then what you do is you contact that individual and you purchased the rights to that

story from them and and you practice this for the president i was involved in several of these catching kill episodes these catch and kill scenarios existed between david pecker and mr trump long before i started working for him in two thousand and seven like a can you suggest who else this committee should talk to for additional information on this or anything else yes i believe david carr dylan howard. barry levine of am i as well. alan weisel berg alan garton trump organizations well thank you very much for your testimony and mr chairman this is a story of redemption thank you ma'am mr comer. mr cohen in your testimony you stated that you began work for the trump organization as

a lawyer dealing with real estate transactions that's correct prior to coming to congress i served as a director of two different banks watson hundreds of loan applications and to try to determine your credibility or did i just want to ask you a couple of real estate transaction question just to see how in fact you operate according to the southern district of new york prosecutors you lied to banks to secure loans by falsely stating the amount of debt you were carrying mr cohen my question to you was it donald trump's fault that you knowingly committed a crime of deception to defraud a bank no it's not was that fraudulent loan you obtained for the trump organization or for you personally it would be for me though i'm not familiar with which loan that you're referring to and i would like to i would like to say one thing mr one so i would like you just to respond. well alone the feeling that i feel when we're talking about the home equity line of credit which is what i believe you're referring to we're also referring no as to what into engineering

time or how that you purchase i don't have a purchased a summer home no individual or no bank in the twenty two years that i've had loans have ever lost a dollar with me i owe no money to any bank or the bank usually fired out of someone trying to say they are into your years i have no doubt on loyalty ever been oh just call any individual or any bank mr cohen did your so-called blind loyalty to the president collars you to defraud the buying for your own personal gains or i take exception to that because there's never been a fraud on a i never defrauded any better let's take a little deeper on that on the bank fraud according the southern district of new york he failed to disclose more than twenty million dollars in liabilities as well as tens of thousands of dollars but only expenses that's according to the southern district of new york now mr cohen you being a lawyer surely you knew you were breaking the law why would you have done that sir

on one of the c.p.a. and i pled guilty i'm going to prison as a big solve it you're a con no sir. because i pled guilty and i am going to be doing the time i have caused tremendous tremendous pain to my family and i let all this go out into the in last question about the bank when the bank found out about the liabilities that you failed to disclose you lied again to the bank this is according the southern district of new york and said it had been expunged when in fact you just shifted the debt to another bank so apparently according to the information that we were say your. intent to defraud the bank was for the desire to purchase the summer home for a million dollars that i would have been off of an equity line considering i had less than a fifty percent loan to value on the assets and it was

a preexisting line of credit that existed years before the date that you were referring to where this is all surrounding new york city taxi medallions but you understand that when you fail to disclose liabilities excess especially. twenty million dollars in liabilities that is in fact fraud except even with the twenty million in liability how much was it the medallions were at that time worth over forty five million dollars. it cohen you call donald trump a cheat in your testimony would you call yourself a fool you calling ok well no comment on that i admit appreciate your chairman we said we were in search of the truth i don't believe that michael cohen is capable of telling the truth and i would hope that as this committee moves forward that when we have the opportunity to subpoena witnesses we

subpoena witnesses that are not recently disbarred are not convicted felon and witnesses that haven't committed bank fraud and tax fraud. that is how we're going to determine the truth so mr chairman i yield the balance of my time to the ranking member they i think jennifer yeah i would just make one point we just had a five minute debate where mr cohen disputes what the southern district of new york found what the judge found that he was actually guilty of committing bank fraud if the statement back here doesn't say at all colin's consciousness of wrongdoing is fleeting his remorse is minimal his instinct is to blame others is to blame others is strong early the one wrong with that statement is remorse is nonexistent you just debated a member of congress saying i really didn't do anything wrong with the false bank things that that i'm guilty of i'm going to prison for mr jordan it's not better not what i said and you know that that's not what i said one of the gentlemen you know i played guilty and i take responsibility for my actions.

shame on you mr jordan a minute mr gerard what i said many more is mr chairman not what i said what i said is i took responsibility and i take responsibility what i was doing is explaining to the gentleman that his facts are in accurate i still i take responsibility for my mistakes all right i am remarks full and i am going to prison i will be away from my wife and family for years so before you turn around there's more just an urgent and please understand i rip people watching you today that know me a whole lot i made mistakes i owned them and i didn't fight with the southern district of new york i didn't put the system through an entire scenario but what i did do is i pled guilty and i am going to be again going to prison it's norton

mystic own. at the center of. the reasons we're going to prison. is conviction for campaign finance violations and they center around. some salacious revelations the washington post. reported. or aired. a access hollywood video it's set a record for the number of people who watched crashed the newspaper's server app but this happened in early october on the cusp of the election what was mr trump's reaction to the video becoming public at that time and was he concerned about the impact of

that video on the election the answer is yes as i stated before i was in london at the time visiting my daughter who is studying there for washington semester abroad and i received a phone call during the dinner from hope x. stating that she just spoken to mr trump and we need you to start making phone calls to the various different news outlets that you have relationships with and we need to spin this what we want to do is just to claim that this was men locker room talk with a concern about the election in particular the answer is yes then couple that with karen mcdougal which then came out around the same time and then on top of that the stormy daniels matter yeah the and these things happen in the month

before the election and also one after the other. the stormy daniels revelation where prosecutors. specials a repository. learned of that. that. matter. and prosecutors stated that the officials at the magazine contacted you about the story and i'm the magazine of course is the national enquirer is is that correct that they did just mean come to you. were you concerned about this new story becoming. public right after the access hollywood study in terms of m. packed on the election i was concerned about it but more importantly mr trump's

clattered was i next question what was the president's concern about these matters becoming public in october as we were about to go into an election i don't think anybody would dispute this. belief that after the wild fire that encompassed the billy bush tape that a second follow up to it would have been pleasant and he was concerned with the effect that it had are on the campaign on how women were seeing him and ultimately whether or not he would have a shot in the general election and how you negotiated one hundred thirty thousand dollars payment. the hundred thirty thousand dollars number was not a number that was actually negotiated it was told to me by keith davidson that this

is a number that mr clifford wanted when you finally eventually completed that deal as it were our october the twenty twentieth's. days before the election what happened in the interim. contemplated whether or not to do it. was unsure if she was really going to go public it was again some communications back and forth between myself and keith davidson and ultimately it came to either do it or don't at which time again i had gone into mr trump's office as i did have to each and every conversation and he told me that he had spoken to a couple of friends in one hundred thirty thousand it's not a lot of money and we should just do it so go ahead and do it and i was at the time with alan weisel berg where he directed us to go back to mr weisel prigs office and figure this all out thank you mr chairman it's about us mr

cohen do you know lynn patton i'm right here of you sir you know lynn patton yes i do. i asked lana to come today in her personal capacity. to actually shed some light how long of you know that i'm responsible for lynne patton joining the trump organization and the job that she currently holds well and that's i'm glad you acknowledge that because you made some very. demeaning comments about the president that miss patton doesn't agree with in fact it has to do with your claim of racism she says that as a daughter of a man born in birmingham alabama that there is no way that she would work for it for a an individual who is races how do you reconcile the two of those as neither should i as the son of a holocaust survivor. but mr cohen i guess what i'm saying

is that i've talked to to the president over three hundred times i've not heard one time a racist comment out of out of his mouth in private so how do you reconcile it do you have proof of those conversations i would ask you to you have tape recordings of those conversations no sir but you've taped everybody else why would you absolutely not true sir that's not true you have a tape anybody i have taped how many times have you taped individuals maybe a hundred times over ten years is that a low estimate because i've heard it over two hundred times you know i don't think i think it's approximately one hundred from what i recall but i was there so why we were asking you a question so you have our ears or you have proof yes or no i do where's the proof it's miss patton how many people who are black or executives at the trump organization busy and all is in a row and we can go through this wired i would ask me i would ask unanimous consent

that her entire statement be put in the record. all right let me go a little bit further did you collect one point two million dollars or so from novartis i did for access to the trump administration no sir why did you collect it because they came to me based upon my knowledge of the enigma donald trump what he thinks so they don't need it sir please let me know did they pay you one point two forty eight dollars do you give them advice yes they did they or a multi-billion dollar conglomerate came to me looking for information not something that's unusual here in d.c. looking for information and they believe that i had a value so how many that i'm still here with was the insight that i was capable of offering them willing to pay how many times did you meet with them. for one point two million dollars how many times did you meet with them i provided them with both

in person as well as telephone access when ever they need how many times yes that's a question i don't know i don't recall sir so did you ever talk to them i spoke to them on several occasions you how many. six times six times wow two hundred thousand dollars a car so i also would like i also would like to receive your five minutes on trial and not yours did you get money from the bank of cause extent it's not a bank of kazakhstan it's called bta bt a bank cause a damn bt a bank did you get money from them i did for what purpose the purpose was because the former c.e.o. of that bank. had absconded with over because between four to six billion dollars and some of the money was here in the united states and they sought my assistance in terms of finding locating that money and helping them to recollect it so are you saying that all the reports that you were paid in some estimates over four million

dollars to have access and understanding of the trumpet ministration you're saying that all of that was just paid to you just because you're a nice guy i am a nice guy but more importantly you know i would react to difference in at a record for lex that you're not a nice each and every contract contained the clause in my contracts that said i will not lobby and i do not do government relations work in fact in fact novartis sent me their contract which stated specifically that they wanted me to lobby that they want to be to provide access to government including the president that information that i regret was crossed out by me initialed and written in my own handwriting says i will not lobby or do government relations work. so novartis representatives say that it was like they were hiring a non registered lobbyist so you disagree with that i don't know what they said sir

but the contracts have you ever contacted anybody in the administration yes to to advocate on behalf of any aspect of any of your contracts i ask unanimous consent mr chairman i ask that i ask unanimous consent of the gentleman's time has expired you may answer the question i don't know what you're referring to sir. mr chairman to call a mr chairman thank you mr chairman. mr cohen i'm pleased you agreed to testify today voluntarily in my view we are all here but just one reason and ask the american people are tired of being lied to. they have been lied to by a president drop they've been lied to by the president's children they have been lied to by the president's legal representatives and it pains me to say that they

have been even lied to by his congressional enablers who are still devoted to pervert perpetuating and protecting this giant con game on the american people now mr cohen i dry to talk to you about the president's assets since by law these must be reported accurately on his federal financial disclosure and when he submitted them for a bank loan mr cohen you serve a nearly a decade as then businessmen drops personal attack attorney and so-called fixer did you had did you also have an understanding of the president's assets and how he valued those items yes and november twenty seventh a crain's new york business reported that the drop on is ation provide

a quote flagrantly untrue revenue figures going back to at least twenty. to influence cranes ranking of the largest private companies in new york according to the report wow to tromp argues ation reported nearly nine four point five billion in revenues and twenty six taking public filings suggested revenues were actually last in one tenth of that to your knowledge did the president for his company ever inflate assets our revenues. yes and was that done with the president's knowledge our direction everything was done with the knowledge and at the direction of mr trump tell us why he would do that what purpose did it it depends upon the situation there were times that i was asked

again with alan weisenberg the c.f.o. . to go back in to speak with an individual from forbes because mr trump want.