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“I am ashamed that I chose to take part
in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts
rather than listening to my own conscience.
I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.
He is a racist.
He is a con man.
And he is a cheat.
Questions have been raised about whether I
know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign
colluded with Russia.
I do not.
And I want to be clear.
But I have my suspicions.
A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew
about the release of the hacked documents,
the Democratic National Committee emails,
ahead of time.
And the answer is yes.
Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations
throughout the campaign and lied about it.
He lied about it because he never expected to win.
He also lied about it because he
stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars
on the Moscow real estate project.
Mr. Trump is a racist.
While we were once driving
through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago,
he commented that only black people could live that way.
And he told me that black people would never
vote for him because they were too stupid.
Mr. Trump is a con man.
He asked me to pay off an adult film star
with whom he had an affair
and to lie about it to his wife, which I did.
And I am going to jail in part because of my decision
to help Mr. Trump hide that payment
from the American people before they voted
a few days later.”
“Did the president call you to coordinate
on public messaging about the payments to Miss Clifford
in or around February 2018?”
“Yes.”
“What did the president ask or suggest that you say
about the payments or reimbursements?”
“He was not knowledgeable of these reimbursements.
He wasn’t knowledgeable of my actions.”
“He asked you to say that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mr. Cohen, How long did you —
how long did you work in the White House?”
“I never worked in the White House.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it, Mr. Cohen?”
“No, sir.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not, sir.”
“You wanted to work in the White House.”
“No, sir.”
“You didn’t get brought to the dance.”
“Did Mr. Trump ask you to threaten an individual
or entity on his behalf?”
“Quite a few times.”
“Fifty times?”
“More.”
“A hundred times?”
“More.”
“Two hundred times?”
“More.”
“Five hundred times?”
“Probably, over the 10 years.”
“Is there a book deal coming, or anything like that?”
“I have no book deal right now in the process.
I have been contacted by many,
including for television, the movie —
if you want to tell me who you would like to play you,
I’m more than happy to write the name down.”
“Can you please describe for us
to the best of your recollection —
you were present —
exactly what Mr. Stone said to Mr. Trump?”
“It was a short conversation and he said, ‘Mr. Trump,
I just want to let you know that I just got off the phone
with Julian Assange, and in a couple of days,
there’s going to be a massive dump of emails
that’s going to severely hurt the Clinton campaign.’”
“To your knowledge,
did the president or his company ever
inflate assets or revenues?”
“Yes.”
“And was that done with the president’s knowledge
or direction?”
“Everything was done with the knowledge
and at the direction of Mr Trump.”
“You’re a pathological liar.
You don’t know truth from — from falsehood.”
“Sir, I’m, sorry,
are you referring to me or the president?”
“Hey, hey! This is my time.”
”Are you referring to me, sir, or the president?”
“When I ask you a question, I’ll ask for an answer.”
“Sure.”
“Over and over again, you know,
we want to have trust — it’s built on the premise
that we’re truthful, that we come forward,
but there is no truth with you whatsoever.
That’s why that’s important,
to look up here and look at the old adage
that our moms taught us: ‘Liar liar, pants on fire.’”
“Hm.”
“No one should ever listen to you
and give you credibility.”
“Putting up silly things like this,
really unbecoming of Congress?
It’s that sort of behavior that I’m responsible for —
I’m responsible for your silliness,
because I did the same thing that you’re doing now,
for 10 years.
I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”