Fact-checking the Michael Cohen hearing
By Glenn Kessler and Glenn Kessler The Fact Checker Email Bio Follow Salvador Rizzo Salvador Rizzo Reporter for The Fact Checker Email Bio Follow February 28 at 3:00 AM A colleague said The Fact Checker faced an existential question about the Michael Cohen testimony: What if a convicted liar says he’s telling the truth about a person he says is a liar?
Papadopoulos was never mentioned in any of the reports written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, collectively known as the dossier, for the firm Fusion GPS That material only became known to the FBI after the earlier investigation was started. There is little dispute over the finding by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia developed a clear preference for Trump — and that Russian entities hacked into Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign accounts to obtain emails that were then leaked to undermine her campaign.
Cohen insisted that he only wanted to be the president’s personal attorney, available on call while living in New York with his family. But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Eric Trump tweeted: “Michael was lobbying EVERYONE to be ‘Chief of Staff.’ It was the biggest joke in the campaign and around the office. Did he just perjure himself again?” Darrell Scott, a member of Trump’s transition team, tweeted: “Michael Cohen asked...no, BEGGED me REPEATEDLY, to ask the POTUS to give him a job in the Administration! He’s STILL lying under oath!”
Meadows mentioned the Swiss drugmaker Novartis; a Korean airline ; and BTA Bank, which is based in Kazakhstan.“It says nongovernmental, Mr. Cohen,” Meadows responded. “You signed it.” Meadows said the government of Kazakhstan owns 81 percent of BTA Bank, but we couldn’t find any corroboration for that number and a spokesperson for the congressman did not respond to our inquiry.This is how Cohen explained the issue after conferring with his attorneys during a break:
“Perhaps a way to solve this is for the chairman to request Mr. Cohen give to this committee all the foreign payments that he has received over the last two years whether they’re an entity or a government,” Meadows said at one point. New York is a “one-party consent” state. Its penal code makes it a crime to intentionally record a conversation “without the consent of at least one party thereto.” Since Cohen was a party to these conversations, he could record them legally without notifying his clients.
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