Analysis of Michael Cohen's historic turn before the House Oversight Committee is coming fast and furious from across the political spectrum, and USA Today has a blistering take on today's testimony, via a former federal prosecutor.
"Cohen’s testimony was the functional equivalent of a WWE body slam to Donald Trump, the Trump campaign and the Trump administration," Michael J. Stern, a federal prosecutor for 25 years in Los Angeles and Detroit, wrote in the newspaper Wednesday.
"The best witnesses to a criminal conspiracy are people who have been involved in the conspiracy," he said of Cohen in his OP-ED. "Yes, they are criminals, but, more importantly, they are eyewitnesses," Stern continued.
"And, an eyewitness like Michael Cohen was in the perfect position to personally observe the illegal activities of his co-conspirators, including his boss, Donald Trump."
The former prosecutor added that it was still necessary to view Cohen's testimony "with caution," but he noted that "Cohen’s past only became checkered at the behest of, and for the benefit of, Donald Trump."
"People involved in crimes rarely testify against their co-conspirators out of the goodness of their hearts but that does not mean what Cohen has to say is untrue," he wrote. "And, testifying falsely to Congress a second time would be the one way to ensure that prosecutors will not give Cohen any credit...so, he had an incentive to be truthful in Wednesday's congressional testimony."
Stern ended his OP-ED with this:
"Remember, Mr. Trump hired Michael Cohen to do his dirty work....in the most basic sense, Trump selected Cohen as the best witness against him."
"And what about the attacks from Trump and the GOP claiming that Michael Cohen cannot be believed because he’s done bad things?" he asked, before answering his own question with "prosecutors have a saying: Conspiracies hatched in hell don’t have angels as witnesses."
Read the full opinion piece here.
