The Cohen Testimony: Lying Liars And The Immensely Stupid Tactics Of The House Republicans

"If I were the president or Donald Trump Junior, I’d get very little sleep tonight or through the rest of the year."

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by Bob Cesca

The line that kept circulating through my head Wednesday evening is the one spoken by Deep Throat in All The President’s Men: “The truth is these aren’t very bright guys and things got out of hand.” Weirdly, I’m not talking about Donald Trump and his inner circle this time, though the line certainly applies to them, too. I’m specifically referring the Republican members of the House Oversight Committee who, rather than defending Trump, decided on the singular tactic of referencing Michael Cohen’s conviction on perjury charges for lying to Congress.

On the surface, the gambit was intended to emphasize that Cohen is a proven liar and therefore he lacks the credibility to be taken seriously. The tactic is part of the overall Trump approach: damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead to Election Day. In other words, if the court of public opinion believes Trump is innocent while literally everyone else is lying, then Trump will likely retain his base when votes are cast in 2020.

Naturally, the Red Hats will never abandon Trump. If he makes it to the election without being removed from office, he can certainly count on at least 30 percent of the popular vote -- roughly the same percentage who think there’s a “deep state coup” in progress against their bloated messiah. Those votes are secured already, so therefore a desperate, flailing attempt to convince them that Cohen is a liar was a totally wasted effort.

Actually, it’s more than a wasted effort, it’s a totally counterproductive one.

Not only did the Oversight Republicans, led by permanently ashen ranking member Jim “Gym” Jordan and definitely-not-a-racist racist Mark Meadows, look like screaming dilettantes during the entirety of the hearing, but they also failed to actually defend Trump against any of the charges, especially and including the new ones from Cohen. Along those lines, Trump’s former personal lawyer accused Trump of being a racist, a conman and a crook who told Cohen to lie about payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Cohen also accused Trump of committing bank fraud, tax fraud, insurance fraud, and a variety of other federal crimes. It’s also possible that Trump ordered his criminal defense lawyer Jay Sekulow to edit Cohen’s congressional testimony so the entire team was on the same page regarding when negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow ended.

Believe it or not, however, the Oversight Republicans’ most egregious tactical error wasn’t any of the aforementioned blunders.

If we read between the lines, it’s easy to see the miscalculation. Jordan, Meadows and the others repeatedly claimed Cohen lied to Congress. What they didn’t say is that Cohen’s lies involved exonerating Trump, claiming that his boss wasn’t working on a real estate deal with the help of Russians close to Vladimir Putin. Put another way, Cohen lied to cover up Trump’s negotiations with Russians at a time when he insisted he had no business with Russia. Perhaps this isn’t what the Republicans wanted to highlight with their dumb little show on Wednesday, but there it is. Yes, Cohen lied. He lied when he said Trump was innocent.

Likewise, Cohen revealed during his testimony that he never went to Europe to negotiate on Trump’s behalf (the Prague meeting noted in the Steele Dossier). He also said he’s not aware of any “controlled substance” abuse by Trump, and he said he didn’t believe Trump punched Melania in an elevator -- the alleged “elevator tape.” And Cohen made it clear that Trump hasn’t paid for any “healthcare procedures” for people not in his immediate family. I took this to mean Trump hasn’t paid for any abortions for his various mistresses (a question I suggested to the House Oversight Democrats on Tuesday).

If Cohen is such a liar, was he lying about Trump being abusive to Melania or perhaps the controlled substance thing? I don’t believe he lied about those details, but do Jordan and the others believe Cohen was telling the truth when it came down to good news for Trump? We’d have to ask them, and I hope someone goes there given how the entire GOP argument was centered around Cohen being a pathological liar.

During the hearing, by the way, the Republicans displayed a placard with a photo of Cohen and the bold text: “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” It was slightly less childish than their actual behavior and tactics in the room. What was their Plan B? Wet willies and purple nurples? With defenders like these, who needs haters?

Contrary to the Republicans in attendance, Michael Cohen and the House Democrats made history in that room, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t give credit to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who was particularly well-prepared and whose questions were among the most relevant to the criminal proceedings against Trump and his co-conspirators.

Meanwhile, if I were the president or Donald Trump Junior, I’d get very little sleep tonight or through the rest of the year, for that matter. The odds of prison sentences for both Junior and Senior seem to have improved significantly this week. And no, these aren’t very bright guys and things are more out of hand than they’ve ever been.