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Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives at the witness table to testify before a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 27, 2019.
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen told a congressional committee on Wednesday that Trump had the potential to cooperate with a foreign power to win the White House.
“Mr. Trump is all about winning,” Cohen testified at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“He will do what is necessary,” Cohen said, in response to a question from Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who about Trump’s potential to cooperate with a foreign government to win the presidency.
Cohen’s testimony comes about two months before he is due to surrender to a federal prison to begin a three-year sentence for multiple crimes, including lying to Congress about details of an aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia.
The 52-year-old disbarred lawyer since last year has met multiple times with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which is investigating whether Trump or members of his presidential campaign colluded with Russian agents to influence the outcome of the 2016 election that sent Trump to the White House.
Cohen earlier Wednesday testified that Trump had advance knowledge, from admitted Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, that the document-release group WikiLeaks in 2016 would be revealing documents stolen from the Democratic party by Russian agents.
Wasserman Schultz noted to Cohen that she had been chairwoman of the Democratic National Commiteee at the time Russian agents hacked into DNC computers and stole that information.
“Knowing how Mr. Trump operates with his winning at all costs mentality,” Wasserman Shultz asked Cohen, “do you believe he would cooperate or collude with a foreign power to win the presidency? Is he capable of that.”
Cohen demurred, at first, saying, “It calls for so much speculation.”
Wasserman Shultz followed up, asking, “In your opinion and experience, would he have the potential to cooperate or collude with a foreign presidency at all costs?”
“Yes,” Cohen answered.
