Thread by @Hegemommy

Jim Jordan yields his time back and then changes his mind and Cummings says, nah and I LIKE THIS NEW COMMITTEE

Cohen sworn in and begins his opening statements which were submitted in advance

cnn.com/2019/02/27/pol…

So I appear to be live-tweeting today! Quick programming note. I have to bow out for a radio spot on how tenuous abortion rights are right now [ON BRAND!] otherwise I GOTCHU ALL

#TeamLegal

Actually bringing the receipts is fantastic

The Grift Laid Bare. The Michael Cohen Oversight Committee Testimony

Individual Number One is President Donald J. Trump, Cohen testifies

Cohen testifies that being in Trump's presence was intoxicating which explains much of his cult-like following

I can say with 20000% certainty that Trump is NOT an intoxicant I would ever chose

IPAs and Indicas, obviously

Cohen testifies about Trump's advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks DNC email dump

Cohen also brings in Trump's financials from when he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills

This is a good method of rehabilitating his credibility. Call Cohen a liar all you want but it's real hard to argue with documents

Cohen also brings in the copy of the wire transfer to Cliffords [Stormy Daniels] and Avenatti and it is not even 9:00 am in The Vortex

Lol is Trump going to come back to the country?

The president of the United States wrote a personal check for hush money to advance a criminal scheme to break campaign finance laws, Cohen testifies

These are prepared remarks and Cohen is already getting a little emotional. I am very curious on his pushback to the GOP. It would appear that Mr. Cohen is out of fucks to give

In the event I ever run for office my test scores were above-average and I consistently graduated in the top tier of my schools but nothing really remarkable. I also was involved in the student newspaper and varsity soccer 🤷🏻‍♀️

That line about still being in Vietnam feels like it should have come from a Michael Bay film, tbh

Cohen testifying about how basically Don Jr. is going to go to jai

Cohen now testifying about how Trump thinks Don Jr. is an idiot

Cohen closing his prepared remarks with the threats to his family made by Trump's 'TV attorneys'

I wonder if Guilliani is mad about that shade or thrilled he got a shout out

The answer to that question is probably 'yes'

Quick programming note!

I usually live-tweet Senate hearings and I know all those folks by voice. The House is a WHOLE DIFFERENT BEAST so I'm going to do my best to keep up

Cummings asks Cohen if he understands the gravity of the moment. Says he will not tolerate any of Cohen's nonsense

Cummings starts off with Trump's plans to reimburse Cohen for hush payment to Cliffords

Conversations started before election, Cohen says.

Cummings then asks Cohen about checks issued from Trump Trust. Cohen says Jr. signed the check.

Date on the check is after Trump claims he gave up control of his businesses [waives to the emoluments clause]

It is a very sweaty day for Allen Weisselberg, I think

"There is no doubt in my mind" that Trump knew what he was paying for, Cohen states

Now Jim Jordan up. Quotes a shakedown statement from Cohen where he threatens to "eff" folks up.

Cohen said he made the statements to protect Trump as well as Don Jr. and Ivanka and Eric

Jordan trying to impeach Cohen's credibility with evidence of Cohen failing to pay back taxes

Hahahaha I forgot about the fake Twitter account "Women for Cohen"

These guys

HASHTAG SEXY

Jordan says the reason Cohen is testifying is because he never got to work in the White House

Jordan tries to talk over Cohen and Cohen won't let him.

Jordan's job here is to piss Cohen off enough he steps all over his own testimony and so far it is not working

Wasserman Schultz up now and wants to talk WikiLeaks

I bet she does

Cohen testifies Trump had advance knowledge of an email dump but didn't know the details of the emails

Cohen testifies that it was certainly possible that the entire Trump family was compromised by the Russians before the election

Cohen testifies that Stone was acting as a free agent rather than an express agent of the campaign

Cohen says he suspects the special counsel's office can corroborate his statements wrt Stone

Cohen testifies that Trump is all about winning and had the potential to collude with a foreign power to win

Cohen backs away from the term "collusion" but says there was something "odd" about the way Trump was always praising the Russians

Final question from Wasserman Schultz: is it likely Trump was aware and willing to work with Russia to win the election

Cohen dodges by saying its under current investigation but also that Trump would do anything to win

Now Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) up and is complaining about a lack of transparency from Democrats which is on brand from Republicans on Oversight

I would like to turn Rep. Green's attention to THE ENTIRE GODDAMN BRETT KAVANAUGH HEARINGS

Green is using his time to complain about how Cummings is managing the hearing which tells you everything you need to know about the Republican strategy here

Finally getting a question from Green which is about Cohen's loss of law license and how he plans to make money

Is there a book deal coming or something like that?

Green now complaining about how he doesn't have much time to ask questions after yelling about Cummings

Green is terrible at this so he yields his time back to Jordan who asks actual questions to Cohen

Now Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) is up

How many times did the president direct you to try and reach settlements with women in 2015 and 2016

Cohen testifies that he'd have to go back and check but it's at least the two we know about

Maloney now has Cohen explain "catch and kill" with outlets like the National Enquirer

Apparently David Pecker and Donald Trump go way back here

Oh fantastic now it is James Comer (R-KY) who is a former banker and asks if it is Trump's fault that Cohen lied to get bank loans

Okay gotta jump out for a different radio spot real quick but I'll be back!

OH THAT WAS A GOOD LINE

You call Donald Trump a thief, what do you call yourself

Cohen: A fool

Okay I'm back!

And just in time for Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) so lucky me I guess

Nice wants to know if Cohen coordinated his testimony with the "Democrat" leadership

Hice is genuinely terrible at asking questions

Who is Paying Lanny Davis is the theme of the GOP opposition, it appears

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) up now and reads all the guilty pleas Mueller has collected and tells Republicans that "their side ran away from the truth" before opening his questions to Cohen

When does Ivanka get a subpoena

I could use some kale chips right now

Cohen addresses the committee writ large and says he doesn't expect them to believe him which is why he brought the documents with him

Jim Jordan, Congressional Waterboy

Mr. Cohen you are a disgraced lawyer says Rep Paul Gosar (R-AZ) says and wants to talk about attorney-client privilege

OOOH I HOPE WE GET TO THE CRIME-FRAUD EXCEPTION

Cohen just snarks at Gosar and it's not even lunch yet y'all

Gosar suggesting that Cohen is testifying today to lessen his future sentence

Apparently everyone is blowing up Gosar's texts to tell him this

I admit when I joined this trashfire site a decade ago never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be live-tweeting congressional testimony about tweets

Well that's finally over and now Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) is up and wants to know Cohen's breaking point and when he started telling the truth

Helsinki
Charlottesville

What warning would you give young people who were tempted as you were so they don't abuse their law license like you did is a weird question but then again today is a weird year

Trump is sending the message that this is his country, Cohen says

Everybody's job at the Trump organization was to protect Mr. Trump, Cohen testifies

Quick break on Cohen's request

I'm going to make some toast quick in case I'm a little late

And we're back!

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-C) up now and wants to talk about lying on documents

Foxx wants Cohen to swear under oath he won't commit to a book or a movie deal which is kind of amazing all things considered

Foxx is very concerned Cohen would join a cable news network after he is out of prison

Foxx yields back to Jordan who is apparently the only GOP rep who is prepared to ask actual questions today

We are not the fact checkers for BuzzFeed is another great line from today OH WHAT A WORLD

Cohen answers to Jordan that he thought he was here to answer questions about President Trump 🤷🏻‍♀️

Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) up now and says that Congress has historically relied on turned witnesses .... which I mean yes that is how a lot of criminal prosecutions work too

Connolly says that White House accidentally released an email that shows POTUS requested meeting with Cohen and Jay Sukelow in May 2017 and wants to know what that meeting was about

Me too

This meeting would have happened just prior to Cohen's first round of Congressional testimony when he lied to protect Trump

Connolly gets Cohen to testify that he talked with Trump about his upcoming testimony

Cohen testifies that Trump didn't "coach" in the traditional sense as much as he projects and gaslights sycophants

Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) up and tries to establish that Cohen was going rogue to help Trump

Also let me take this moment to say thank you all who have tweeted Gym Jordan because you have brightened my day

Lololol someone tell Rep. Higgins how document retention works

Rep Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)and wants to talk about the Trump organization's use of Non-Disclosure Agreements to silence employees and volunteers

Rep. Krishnamoorthi also gets Cohen to say that nothing happens at the Trump organization without going through Trump first

Krishnamoorthi asks Cohen if he knows if Trump arranged for any abortions [health care procedures] and Cohen says he's not aware of any

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) up now and returns to the theme that Cohen is a spurned former employee who expected to be in the Trump administration

Cloud submits Cohen's sentencing memo in the record

Cloud tells Cohen that going to jail for a couple years and getting a book deal "isn't bad living" And brah, really?

Rep. Mark Meadows jumps in to suggest Cohen lied to committee members in his initial disclosure on foreign contacts

Cummings gavels Meadows out of order and tells him to wait his turn

Now Raskin is up and says the GOP is mad because Cohen has stopped lying on Trump's behalf

Raskin is not here for any of the Republican bullshit

I think David Pecker might be getting a subpoena

deleting that tweet and fixing a typo

Cohen suggests some of the catch and kill stories were about something OTHER than women

*fixed

Cohen testifying that Sukelow changed his initial testimony to Congress so that's interesting

Rep. Glenn Grotham is totes offended anyone would suggest Trump wasn't serious about his presidential run

Rep. Rouda (D-FL) detailing Trump's lies under oath about ties to convicted Russian mobster Felix Sater

Trump gave Sater Cohen's former office in Trump Tower

Cohen testifies that the Trump Organization would have documents detailing the relationship between Trump at Sater

It's gonna rain subpoenas after today

Rep. Justin Amash basically asks Cohen if Cohen is such a bad lawyer why did he hire him

Amash makes a fatal flaw here by giving Cohen an open mic to explain how Trump gets folks to lie and purger themselves for Trump

Amash asks Cohen what is the one truth Trump fears the most and seems sincerely interested in the answer

Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) up now and notes that she's from a purple district and comes from generations of service members who swore to uphold the constitution

Rep. Hill bringing a different kind of gravitas right now

I am new to Rep. Hill but she did very well

Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) is very upset we are calling Trump a racist while he is overseas trying to make this world a better place

Gibbs wants everyone to know Trump is a very sincere* man

*sincere about his racism

Gibbs asks Cohen if Trump is so bad why did he work for him for so long

Okay sorry got a call WHICH RUDE WHO DOES THAT but back to Rep. Sarbanes who is asking important questions about Sukelow but is kind of droning

DO NOT DRONE PLEASE

Cohen testifies that the lawyer for Javanka probably reviewed his previous congressional testimony in addition to Sukelow

The goal was to stay on message, Cohen said

Sarbanes notes the behavior Cohen describes is the same Trump displays every day

Now wants to talk about the inauguration committee

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) opens his questions by quoting scripture

Higgins is a prosecutor and I'm just going to leave that there

That man is creepy

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) up now and wants to talk about Stone and WikiLeaks

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) up now and wants to know if Cohen is just having a sads because he got caught

Rep. Norman appears confused as to what a wiretap is and what it is used for

It's quite something to listen to Republican members of Congress clutch pearls over shady bank schemes, I'll tell ya

Rep. Jackie Speier up and immediately gets Cohen to commit to looking for/providing a copy of his original congressional testimony pre-Sukelow edit

HERE FOR THIS

Is there a love child, Speier asks

Not to my knowledge, Cohen says

We are going to take a break and Rep. Cummings offers an algebra equation for when we are to return and sir, I object

But I am DEFINITELY not as chuffed as Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV) who opens by letting the committee know just how disappointed she is in everyone here today

Miller is APPALLED that we are not focusing on things like building a wall or prosecuting pregnant people for using drugs

Miller's pearls finally come undone from all the clutching as she yields the remainder of her time back to Jordan

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) up now and asks for more details on the Daniels payment

Cohen testifies that Trump knew about the payments and how and where to hide the payments

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) up now and says Cohen is ignoring attorney-client privilege by offering up the tapes to Congress

Cohen notes those tapes are already in the possession of law enforcement

Sorry got pulled into an abortion thing: The Jess Pieklo Story

Back to the Cohen hearing

Cohen reminds us that a Liberty University employee was rigging online polls for Trump

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) up now and signs his name to the list of Republicans who are very disappointed in today's proceedings

Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) is not here for you having A Black Friend 💥

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) up now and he's actually questioning the witness. Not about Trump. But still these are questions and that's a change

Roy reminds me a little bit of Mike Lee tbh

Okay now Roy starts to speechify

And he's speechifying about the wall

Yessss Rep. Stacey Plaskett notes that it is possible for Congress to handle more than one thing at a time

The Black women in Congress are having NOT A FUCKING BIT OF IT

Okay we're on break for about an hour or so by Congressional algebra

And we're back!

Did everyone hydrate? Grab some snacks?

Cummings starts off with the dust up over Cohen's disclosure on the truth in testimony form. Cohen says his attorneys feel he answered truthfully

Meadows now says the only way to answer this question [of a truthful disclosure] is for Cohen to give over all proof of his foreign payments

Republicans now very concerned about foreign meddling

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) starts off with what he calls the "smoking gun document," a copy of a check issued to Cohen from the Trump Trust

Calls the payment garden variety financial fraud

Are you telling us the president directed transactions as part of a criminal conspiracy for financial fraud, Khanna states

Yes, Cohen says

Is this part of the S.D.N.Y. investigation Khanna asks

I'd rather not say, Cohen says

That was a very good use of time by Khanna

Now it's Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) who asks if Trump was really under audit when he refused to release his returns

Cohen says he doesn't know

Gomez making the point that historically releasing tax returns has been tied to proving that a candidate/nominee does not have financial interests that could be compromised

Now Meadows is reading tweets into the record

OMG PICK ONE OF MINE

AOC up now asks about Trump providing inflated assets to insurance companies and wants to know where to find those documents

At the Trump Org, Cohen states

That sound you hear in the background now is a subpoena being drafted

Now asks about Trump improperly devaluing his assets to avoid paying taxes

Conservative media is going to go bananas over all of this

AOC frames some of these questions specific to Trump investments in New York which maybe state investigators are listening in I dunno

Rep. Ayanna Pressley up now

Well let there be light, she says referring to the point of the oversight committee

Pressley brings up the Trump Foundation and its self dealing

Cohen now testifying of other instances of Trump self-dealing beyond the staw buyer of the Trump portrait

Pressley's open might have been a little awkward but that close was pretty great

Rep. Rashida Tlaib up now

Sorry Ripley just lost her damn mind so I didn't hear any of Tlaib's opening statement

#havingitall

Tlaib calls out the racist act of bringing in a Black woman and having her stand up to say Trump isn't racist.

Meadows flips.

Tlaib reads her statements back and submits it back for the record.

We are gonna get actual white tears folks

SHES THE REAL RACIST says Meadows

Wow, y'all. This is a mini-course on white fragility

Well that escalated like one of my family's holiday dinners

Also I'm closing none of my circles today damnit

Hashtag sexy

Closing remarks from Cohen

Thanks the Chairman

Returns to his mea culpas

Cohen says if Trump loses in 2020 he fears there won't be a peaceful transition of power

Gym Jordan up now for closing remarks and details what he sees as Cohen conflicting testimony today

Jordan is real upset about Rosenstein and the possibility of a 25th Amendment inquiry to remove Trump

Cummings up now with his closing statements

He's really not having this line from the GOP that today was the 'first hearing' of the Committee

"When we are dancing with the angels, the question will be in 2019, what did you do to preserve the integrity of democracy?...with that this meeting is adjourned" says Cummings