Michael Cohen told Democrats what they wanted to hear in his highly anticipated testimony before Congress on Wednesday.
The disgraced, disbarred lawyer characterized his former boss as a liar, a racist, and a charlatan. But there’s just one problem with his testimony: Cohen is an admitted liar.
Attempting to distance himself from President Donald Trump and his own misdeeds, Cohen said, “I have lied, but I am not a liar.” Meanwhile, Cohen continued to tell more lies throughout his testimony.
Cohen admits to perjury
Cohen’s credibility has serious implications for his charges against Trump. Democrats have predictably rehabilitated him, arguing that he has little reason to lie now, but Republicans warned before and throughout Cohen’s testimony that Cohen, who has already been convicted of lying to Congress once, can’t be trusted.
Attempting to rehabilitate his reputation, Cohen now says that he’s coming clean and won’t lie again. In his opening statement on Wednesday, Cohen said he had told lies in the past, but that they don’t define him.
“For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your ‘fixer,’ Mr. Trump,” Cohen said.
On the one hand, Cohen had little choice but to acknowledge lies that he has already pleaded guilty to telling. So it’s not surprising that, rather than deny telling them, he attempted instead to distance himself from them and blame Trump.
“Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie,” Cohen said. But this hardly seems like an honest maneuver.
According to an expert on rhetoric, Cohen used a verbal strategy called “dissociation” to separate his actions from his character, to clear himself of any wrongdoing, and to implicate Trump. Using this strategy, Cohen attempted to distinguish his past lies from his essence as a person, pleading with the crowd to consider that “these things I have done don’t define me,” and then paint Trump as fundamentally dishonest to pass the blame.
Reformed liar, or just a liar?
At issue is the question of whether Cohen, because he lied in the past, is fundamentally a liar. Understandably, many are unconvinced that he’s changed.
“Mr. Cohen, you’ve claimed to have lied, but you’re not a liar,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) said on Wednesday. “Just to set the record straight, if you’ve lied, you are a liar by definition.”
On its face, Cohen’s defense sounds paradoxical, particularly given the sheer extent of his lying in the past. All philosophical speculation aside, Cohen is heading to prison for a raft of crimes including tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations.
In Cohen’s sentencing memo, prosecutors described him as a serial liar who habitually blamed others. The memo writes that Cohen’s “consciousness of wrongdoing is fleeting, that his remorse is minimal, and that his instinct to blame others is strong. While he has legally accepted responsibility, the Court should consider at sentencing these transparent efforts at minimizing Cohen’s false statements and criminal conduct.”
Cohen says that he has changed, but he told additional lies under oath during his hours of testimony Wednesday. House Freedom Caucus Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) referred Cohen to Attorney General William Barr on Thursday for making “numerous willfully and intentionally false statements” that contradict evidence in the Southern District of New York’s case against Cohen, as well as Cohen’s own statements and the testimony of “witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the subject matter.”
Perhaps the most damning lie Cohen told had to do with his desire to work at the White House. During the hearing, Jordan accused Cohen of seeking revenge against Trump after getting passed over, prompting Cohen to deny that he ever coveted a position in the Trump administration, but members of Trump’s circle, including Trump’s sons, contradicted Cohen’s claims. More damning, in a 2016 CNN interview, Cohen said that he would “certainly” have liked a job at the White House and would have “a hundred percent” accepted it.
Cohen says he used to be a liar, but he sees the light now. His testimony shows that nothing has changed. Why should anyone believe him?
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