CONGRESS/MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “President Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer accused him on Wednesday [2-27-19] of an expansive pattern of lies and criminality, offering a damning portrayal of life inside the president’s orbit where he said advisers sacrificed integrity for proximity to power. Michael D. Cohen, who represented Mr. Trump for a decade, laid out for Congress for the first time a series of deceptions by the president. He charged that Mr. Trump lied to the public about business interests in Russia, lied to reporters about stolen Democratic emails and told Mr. Cohen to lie about hush payments to cover up sexual misconduct. The accusations, aired at a daylong hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, exposed a dark underside of Mr. Trump’s business and political worlds in the voice of one of the ultimate insiders. Perhaps no close associate has turned on a president in front of Congress in such dramatic fashion and with such high stakes since John Dean testified against President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal.”
–Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos, “Michael Cohen Accuses Trump of Expansive Pattern of Lies and Criminality,” The New YorK Times online, Febryary 27, 2019