Michael Cohen testimony: Live updates

Michael Cohen, the former “fixer” and personal lawyer of US President Donald Trump, is set to give his testimony on Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight. 

Cohen, who worked for Trump from 2006 until 2018 in roles including as his personal lawyer, co-president of Trump Entertainment and deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the special counsel’s Russia probe in August. 

Those charges include fraud, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws, which he said he committed at Trump’s direction – an allegation the president denies. 

Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison. The start of that prison sentence is set to begin in May. 

Wednesday’s testimony began at 10am local time (15:00 GMT). Here are all the latest updates: 

Roger Stone says Cohen’s statements on emails ‘not true’

Trump ally Roger Stone says Trump did not learn about the DNC hack leak from him. 

“Mr Cohen’s statement is not true,” Stone told NBC News in a statement. 

In his testimony, Cohen said in a phone call, Stone told Trump that the Wikileaks planned to drop emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 

Cohen says he was offered White House job

Responding to questions by Republican Jim Jordan, Cohen said he was offered a job at the White House, but turned it down because he was advised it would violate attorney-client privledge. 

Cohen says he wouldn’t accept pardon

Cohen said that he has never asked for a pardon from Trump and would never accept one from the president. 

Cohen’s team releases exhibits

Cohen’s representatives have released a dropbox link that includes the exhibits that Cohen is presenting to the House panel. 

Among the documents are the checks Cohen said were written as reimbursement for hush money payments Cohen made “on [Trump’s] behalf”. 

One of the checks, Cohen said was signed by Trump while he was president. 

Cohen: I don’t have evidence of collusion, but I have ‘suspicions’

Cohen said he does not have direct evidence that Trump colluded with the Russian government during the election, but that he has “suspicions”.

Cohen says Trump ‘wrote personal check’ for hush money payment

Cohen says that as US president, Trump “wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws”. 

He says that while visiting Trump in the White House in February 2017, the president told him to not worry because reimbursement checks were on the way. 

“As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter,” Cohen says. 

Stone told Trump there would be ‘massive dump of emails’

Cohen says that he was in Trump’s office when Roger Stone called to tell Trump that Julian Assange “within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign”. 

Cohens adds: “Mr Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great.'”

Cohen says Trump ‘never expected to win’

Cohen says that Trump “never expected to win the primary” or the general election.

“The campaign for him was always a marketing opportunity,” the former Trump lawyer says. 

Cohen says in ‘Trump’s way, he was telling me to lie’

Reading from his prepared remarks, Cohen tells the House panel: 

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. 

 

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.

 

Cohen says Trump knew about release of hacked DNC emails 

Cohen says Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National committee emails ahead of time. 

Trump “was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails,” Cohen said. 

Cohen calls Trump ‘racist’, a ‘conman’ 

Cohen says he is “ashamed” that he knows “what Mr Trump is”. 

“He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,” Cohen tells the House committee.

Cohen begins testimony 

Cohen begins his testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

LIVE: Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of US President Donald Trump, testifies before members of the House Oversight Committee. https://t.co/hTBj98pNFv

— Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) February 27, 2019

Congressional hearing under way  

Congressional hearing under way featuring highly anticipated public testimony by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Excerpts of Cohen’s prepared remarks

“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 is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat.

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

Trump knew of Clinton email leak, Cohen to say in his testimony

Cohen plans to accuse Trump of being “a racist”, “a conman” and “a cheat” who committed “illicit acts” before Congress on Wednesday, according to a draft testimony (PDF) released by US media outlets.

Cohen will state in the testimony that Trump committed a variety of possible crimes, including making hush payments to aid his campaign and tax fraud.

The former lawyer claims that Trump asked if he “could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘s******'”, during former President Barack Obama’s term.

Cohen also claims Trump was told by Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political consultant, that WikiLeaks was in possession of emails that “would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign”.

Read more.

Trump tweets Cohen ‘lying in order to reduce prison time’

Ahead of Cohen’s testimony, Trump took to Twitter, saying his former lawyer is “lying in order to reduce his prison time” – a statement he has said before.