President Donald Trump addressed his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee during a press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, Thursday morning.
Cohen accused the president of having a direct role in the hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, manipulating his net worth, and of being racist. The White House has repeatedly pushed back on those claims.
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“Thank you, Mr. President two questions, if I may. First did you learn anything new about Chairman Kim through this meeting and secondly of course while this was going on, the drama back in Washington, your former lawyer, Michael Cohen,” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl stated. “He call you had a liar, a con man, a racist. What’s your response to Michael Cohen?”
“Well, it is incorrect and it is very interesting, because I tried to watch as much as I could I wasn’t able to watch too much, because I’ve been a little bit busy, but I think having a fake hearing like that and having it in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing,” Trump responded. “They could have made it two-days later or next week and it would have been even better, they would have had more time, but having it during this very important summit is sort of incredible.”
He continued, “He lied a lot, but it was very interesting because he didn’t lie about one thing, he said no collusion with the Russian hoax and I said, I wonder why he didn’t just lie about that, too, like he did about everything else, he lies about so many different things, and I was actually impressed that he didn’t say, well, I think there was collusion for this reason or that. He didn’t say that. He said no collusion, and I was a little impressed by that, frankly.” (RELATED: Michael Cohen Pours Cold Water On Collusion In Congressional Testimony, But Makes Bombshell Wikileaks Claim)
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 27: Michael Cohen, former attorney and fixer for President Donald Trump, shares a moment with his lawyer Lanny Davis as he testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill February 27, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
As the president mentioned, Cohen acknowledged that he saw no “direct evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also alleged however, that Roger Stone told Trump about Wikileaks’ plan to dump stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee. Cohen could not provide corroborating evidence to prove this claim.
“He only went about 95% instead of 100%. But the fact is there is no collusion and I call it the witch hunt, this should never happen to another president, this is so bad for our country. So bad. You look at this whole hoax I call it the Russian witch hunt, and now I add the word hoax, it is very, very bad for our country,” Trump concluded.
US President Donald Trump (L) speaks as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looks on during press conference following the second US-North Korea summit in Hanoi on February 28, 2019. (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump was in Vietnam to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. This is the second time the two leaders have met with the ultimate goal of denuclearization. The two of them walked away from the table on Wednesday without an agreement to work towards that goal.