MICHAEL COHEN/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump suggested Sunday [3-3-19] night that the high-profile congressional testimony offered last week by his former personal attorney may have contributed to the collapse of nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a summit in Vietnam. Trump thus far has attributed his decision to walk away from those negotiations about North Korean denuclearization efforts to Kim’s demands for total relief from U.S. sanctions in exchange for incremental steps toward denuclearization — a retelling North Korea has disputed. But Trump on Sunday offered up another explanation for the abrupt end to his summit with North Korea’s leader…Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer, spent three days testifying on Capitol Hill last week, including one day of public hearings, appearing before both Republican and Democrat-led committees ahead of a three-year prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance violations, among other crimes. Despite Trump’s second summit with Kim taking place halfway around the world, with a 12-hour time difference, Cohen’s public testimony before the House Oversight Committee about his time working for Trump loomed large over the nuclear negotiations.”
–Caitlin Oprysko, “Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to nuclear talks’ collapse,” Politico, March 4, 2019 7:24 am