Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen ‘will publicly accuse president of criminal conduct in office over Stormy Daniels payments’
Trump’s former “fixer”, 52, is also said to be ready to spill the beans on the president’s time in the White House when he appears in a series of congressional hearings over three days.
He is expected to provide evidence of alleged criminal conduct by Donald Trump, 72, since he entered the White House as well as revealing information on the president’s financial statements.
Cohen is ready to tell the House Oversight Committee all he knows about Trump’s dealings with Russia, hush payments to Daniels before the 2016 election and other controversial areas, according to NBC News who cited an anonymous source.
His testimony will focus on “behind-the-scenes” dealings when he worked for Trump for more than a decade.
Trump paid Stephanie Clifford, a former porn star known as Stormy Daniels, $130,000 (£98,500) in October 2016 in an attempt to keep her quiet after she alleged she had slept with Trump.
'BEHIND-THE-SCENES' DEALINGS
Federal prosecutors then investigated Cohen’s activities and raided his home and office after launching a probe into the Trump Organisation and whether or not it had broken campaign-finance regulations.
The probe is ongoing.
It is claimed Cohen will also make public some of Trump’s private financial statements and claim that Trump either exaggerated or reduced his net worth for business and personal purposes, such as avoiding paying property taxes.
During that time the source said Cohen witnessed “lies, racism and cheating” by Trump.
Cohen is believed to be willing to recount racist remarks made by Trump to him, including ones where he allegedly questioned the intelligence of African-Americans and blasted their lifestyle choices.
The person said Cohen is also expected to discuss what he knows about a meeting between Trump campaign associates and a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower before the 2016 election, a matter that is of particular interest to Robert Mueller and congressional investigators over his Russia investigation.
'LIES, RACISM AND CHEATING'
The lawyer previously implicated Trump in two federal crimes in August last year when he told prosecutors Trump had directed hush-money payments during the presidential campaign to Daniels and to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claims she had an affair with Trump.
The unnamed source claimed Cohen had evidence of criminal conduct since the Republican became president which involved the payment to Daniels, but declined to give details before the hearing.
Trump has previously dismissed the payment to Daniels as a “simple private transaction”, adding if the payments were illegal then it was Cohen’s “mistake”.
The president has denied both the sexual encounters with the women as well as denying ordering Cohen to arrange the payments.
Federal prosecutors in New York directly implicated the president in the payoffs in December, alleging Trump had played a key role in the payments.
Senators are alternately suspicious of Cohen, who is set to serve time in prison for lying to the committee in 2017, and eager to hear what Trump's former loyal fixer has to say after he turned on his longtime boss.
Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to the House and Senate intelligence committees about abandoning a Trump business proposal in Moscow in January 2016. Cohen has since acknowledged he continued pursuing the project for months after that.
He is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May.
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