On Morning Joe today co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough discussed the busy week ahead for former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen will meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, and the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
It would be an understatement to say the Cohen’s congressional testimony is “much anticipated.” In fact, what Cohen has to say could create a firestorm in Washington that will last for months. According to experts, he will provide “detailed, sordid and chilling” evidence against Donald Trump, and this could be the beginning of the end of Trump’s tenure in the White House.
The former Trump Organization attorney has a credibility problem since he has already pleaded guilty to lying during previous congressional testimony, before entering into a cooperation agreement with investigators. According to NBC News national security correspondent Ken Dilanian, Cohen has a plan to address his credibility issues before Congress.
“He’s expected to address, first of all, his lies to those congressional committees on the timing of the Trump Tower and Moscow deal, the fact that it was going on much longer than he admitted in public and much longer than Donald Trump acknowledged,” Dilanian told the Morning Joe panel.
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Cohen’s plea agreement details the president’s lies about his dealings with Russia during the 2016 campaign, but he’s not allowed to address those issues before the committees because special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is still pending.
“We could have an absolutely dramatic and riveting performance by Michael Cohen,” Dilanian continued. “While he’s not allowed to talk about the Russia investigation when he appears before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, he’s going to talk about sensitive subjects, such as those hush money payments to women.”
The committee is also planning to question Cohen about a myriad of other explosive topics, such as Trump’s violation of campaign finance and tax laws, potential conflicts of interest, and criminal business practices of his family business, the Trump Organization.
“I’m told Cohen has been prepping with this for a long time, and he knows he’s got credibility issues, so he’s coming with documents,” Dilanian said. And then he added:
“He’s got very detailed, sordid and chilling stories of how the president conducts himself behind closed doors.”
“We were told that he has new information that he has given the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. He has provided those prosecutors documents relating to the Trump Organization that will help those prosecutors in their criminal investigations of the president, his children and his business.”
“And we shouldn’t underestimate how powerful seeing a Trump insider who has been with Donald Trump for more than 10 years telling these stories before the glare of the television lights,” Dilanian added.
When Michael Cohen provides to Congress ‘detailed, sordid and chilling’ evidence against Donald Trump, including documents, the whole world will be watching. The coming week could be the worst week yet in the presidency of Donald Trump.
CLICK HERE to watch the entire Dilanian interview on MSNBC
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
