Congressional Testimony Megathread

[Flower Milk]

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000...d-bfb99a790001

Some highlights:

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He is a racist.

He is a conman.

He is a cheat.

He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false–our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation –only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.”

In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not consider Vietnam Veteran, and Prisoner of War, Senator John McCain to be “a hero” because he likes people who weren’t captured. At the same time, Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.

Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.

He finished the conversation with the following comment. “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”

I find it ironic,President Trump,that you are in Vietnam right now.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions.

Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, “Dirt on Hillary Clinton.” Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father’s desk –which in itself was unusual. People didn’t just walk behind Mr. Trump’s desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: “The meeting is all set.” I remember Mr. Trump saying, “Ok good...let me know.”

What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone –and certainly not without checking with his father. I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad’s desk that day --and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was talking about when he said, “That’s good...let me know.”

[mvaliz]

The one other piece that my jaw dropped on was finding out that the stupid portrait of himself bought with the Dump Charity Fund was actually deliberately rigged BY DUMP'S REQUEST for the buyer to deliberately jack up the price to make it the highest-bid item in the lot!

Jesus Christ >_<

And don't forget all the racist shit, like driving down Chicago saying "Only Black people want to live like this". >_<

[Zaktar]

But Jussie Smollett

*Proceeds to derail thread by engaging with well-intentioned, reasonable, but ultimately fruitless argument.*

But really... can someone lay out some of the actual legal issues presented by the testimony? It makes for entertaining reading but it's hard to parse the juicy gossip from the actionable items supported by the listed evidence. It seems like there is little of the latter to my untrained eye.

[Wyrt]

*Proceeds to derail thread by engaging with well-intentioned, reasonable, but ultimately fruitless argument.*

But really... can someone lay out some of the actual legal issues presented by the testimony? It makes for entertaining reading but it's hard to parse the juicy gossip from the actionable items supported by the listed evidence. It seems like there is little of the latter to my untrained eye.

There's some campaign finance violations. Witness intimidation.

Also confirmation that Trump had Stone connect with Wikileaks to release the DNC emails.

Cohen doesn't know about Russia other than that Trump knew about Jr's meeting with the Russian agents.

[Blur4stuff]

Supposedly he has evidence like checks signed by Trump that were used to repay payments made to Karen/Stormy. And evidence that Trump knew about the wikileaks situation beforehand. If those two things are true then it exposes Trump legally for sure. Any other person would be in jail.

He leaked that one audio of Trump on a phone call awhile back, but you also have to wonder how many other recordings he made that would be relevant. Mueller knows of course, but I dunno if he'll provide anything like that tomorrow.

[PACOX]

*Proceeds to derail thread by engaging with well-intentioned, reasonable, but ultimately fruitless argument.*

But really... can someone lay out some of the actual legal issues presented by the testimony? It makes for entertaining reading but it's hard to parse the juicy gossip from the actionable items supported by the listed evidence. It seems like there is little of the latter to my untrained eye.

Are you familiar with Cohen and why he is trouble?

He either acted independently or under the direction of someone.

During his trial, he couldn't implicate someone because that person is a high profile individual who wasn't on trial, but he can do (and must if it's true) in front of Congress, where his testimony is as binding as a court testimony. Implicating someone in a criminal activity will not be good for that person, from embarassing to damning. If Cohen names this person it will give Congress great cause to pursue further investigations of that person. That person is up for re-election.

- - - Updated - - -

Supposedly he has evidence like checks signed by Trump that were used to repay payments made to Karen/Stormy. And evidence that Trump knew about the wikileaks situation beforehand. If those two things are true then it exposes Trump legally for sure. Any other person would be in jail.

He leaked that one audio of Trump on a phone call awhile back, but you also have to wonder how many other recordings he made that would be relevant. Mueller knows of course, but I dunno if he'll provide anything like that tomorrow.

This is, if not of more, handoffs that Mueller has made to other legal entities to serve justice. Mueller is limited in scope but that doesn't stop other parties from picking up where he left off. Cohen has basically said what Trump has done but it wasn't relevant to what Mueller was doing at the time. Also Trump would definitly have RICO charges filed against him at this point if he wasn't POTUS.

[Snorkles]

That controversial Buzzfeed article was pretty close it turns out.

[Kaleredar]

The resident trumpkins have grown awfully silent as of late.


Good. They can finally either stare into the light, or slink back into the darkness where they belong.

[Kasierith]

For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump.

It's now public record. This is, imo, the most significant part of his public 2/27/19 testimony.

[ohtlmtlm]

I coincidentally have the day off, but we've all been through the drills by now. Trumpists will claim he's lying, ask questions to discredit Cohen's credibility, play only those clips on Fox News to shape republican opinion. There will be 48 hours of media buzz, and both sides will just resolve to see how the electorate feels about everything that's been presented in the next election.

It's almost like what would happen organically without minute by minute coverage. But without the financially beneficial viewership of propping this up; instead of actual day to day news, like wealth inequality, the struggle of the poor, our failures in global politics, the rise of oil funded Authoritarians and Dictatorships ect...you know, business as usual. This way They can put a countdown in the bottom right or left corner. until we are all more concerned about when things are happening as opposed to what or why the thing is actually happening, or what or why is actually being voted for. This approach works very well in a country that is experiencing crisis. because the word crisis carries a weight of immediacy. You know, kind of like randomly declaring normal patterns of southern immigration a National Emergency.

[Orbitus]

I don't know which thread to put this in, it could go in the Mueller investigation because it is about Russian collusion, it could go in the Trump shitshow thread because it is about 2 of the shits we call Trump, or this thread. So I will put it in this thread. If @Breccia or @Skroe wants to use it, feel free to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/u...-congress.html

This was from his 20 page testimony summary from Tuesday. Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting between Jr, Manafort, and Kushner. Simply because Cohen was there when Jr walked up to Trump and whispered to him that the "meeting was all set", and Trump said, "O.K. Good, let me know".

And Mr. Cohen will reference a conversation he claims to have observed between the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his father, which he believes happened around the time of a planned meeting with a Russian lawyer promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

He does not claim to have heard a direct reference to the meeting. Instead, Mr. Cohen will say, he recalled this event after The Times revealed the June 2016 meeting had taken place.

“I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying, ‘The meeting is all set.’ I remember Mr. Trump saying, “O.K. good … let me know,’” Mr. Cohen will say.

He also knew that Roger Stone was in contact with Julian Assange because Trump put Stone on speakerphone while Cohen was in the room and was talking about it.

Mr. Cohen will also tell Congress that Mr. Trump had advance knowledge through his longtime adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. that WikiLeaks would publish hacked emails that would damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone,” his written remarks say. “Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great.’”

Mr. Stone, who was recently indicted on charges that include witness tampering and false statements to Congress, has denied to reporters that such a conversation took place. The recent indictment against him made no mention of such a conversation, but it did state that a senior campaign official was directed to contact Mr. Stone around that period of time about what material WikiLeaks had.

This is so fun, isn't it? I mean, people like @Knolan keep asking where the collusion was, and was thinking the Senate or House investigations being over think there is no evidence of collusion. We now have the evidence that there is collusion. And I am sure Mueller has everything that Cohen had for evidence.

[Voidism]

Delicious!

I hope something will come from this, but I have my doubts. :/

[Dead Moose Fandango]

The icing on the shit-filled cake would be if there were confirmation of the piss tapes. Just to add to laughs.

[Fahrenheit]

For the life of me, I'll never understand how some, maybe even most people knew that this guy was a shit tier human being in like every conceivable way and still voted for him for transient political gain.

[Thekri]

Delicious!

I hope something will come from this, but I have my doubts. :/

Well ultimately there is only one thing that needs to be proved here. That Trump is no longer valuable to Mitch McConnell. Seriously, that is the only thing that matters in this whole mess. It doesn't matter how many N-words Trump drops, or how many crimes he is directly linked too. None of that matters, because Nancy Pelosi will not start an impeachment hearing in the house until she knows it will pass the senate (Or right before 2020, to drag everything back into the open).

And it cannot get a 2/3s vote until Mitch says so. Mitch is literally the only person that can end this. Trump is smart enough to realize this, and Mitch is the only one he fears. So when Mitch McConnell decides that pissing off the vast army of Trumpkins is the lesser of two evils, Trump will be gone. But not before.

[Acidbaron]

For the life of me, I'll never understand how some, maybe even most people knew that this guy was a shit tier human being in like every conceivable way and still voted for him for transient political gain.

That's easy to explain actually, every so often in the USA you have a resurgence of an anti-PC culture and those also pick nationalists or so called nationalists champions for their cause. Remember that the last anti-PC culture was against civil rights, it might seem completely absurd now but it was something plenty of people were torn on. The mere thought of their white kids ending up in schools with black kids send them into a state of rage so much these kids needed police protection to enter schools.

And so that's why he is popular, as his following define it "saying it like it is" is simply translated to i'm a racist, i'm a bigot, i'm a sexist and i find that women and people of colour are worth less than me and i fine that my "white culture" of dominance is under attack when i have to treat them as equals, because that's how i was raised.

That's essentially all there is to it. And this also explains his current still core base. Majority have already seen the lies now and are probably mostly too embarrassed to ever mention they voted for him.

[kaelleria]

He has copies of checks signed by both Trump and Trump Jr. One of the checks is dated while Trump was president.

They are totally fucked.

[Felya]

For the life of me, I'll never understand how some, maybe even most people knew that this guy was a shit tier human being in like every conceivable way and still voted for him for transient political gain.

As Cohen said, this was a long con... the greatest infomercial.

[Acidbaron]

Wonder after all this if Stone is still as confident as he was last week with defying courts.

[Everwake]

Looks like Cohen has gone all "angry ex-girlfriend" on Trump! Next, he'll be keying his car.