Cohen will call Trump a ‘racist’ and a ‘conman’ in testimony

By: Emily S.

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, will testify to Congress Wednesday that his former boss is a “racist,” “con man,” and “cheat.”

“I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience,” Cohen will say in his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee, a copy of which was provided to The Post Tuesday night.

“I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your ‘fixer,’ Mr. Trump.”

The highly anticipated testimony comes as Cohen prepares to spend three years in jail after pleading guilty to a slew of crimes, including lying to Congress.

Cohen will claim Wednesday that he lied to Congress about his efforts to seek financing for a Trump Tower project in Moscow because Trump implicitly ordered him to.

“I was actively negotiating in Russia for him. He would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen’s statement reads. “In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

He’ll say he has no “direct evidence” of Trump or his campaign’s colluding with Russia, but has “suspicions.”

Cohen will also say Trump knew longtime adviser Roger Stone was “talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee e-mails.”
And he’ll claim he was instructed by Trump to lie to First Lady Melania about the president’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

“Lying to the first lady is one of my biggest regrets,” his statement says. “She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly — and she did not deserve that.”

Cohen will also provide the committee with the check Trump allegedly used to reimbursed him for a hush-money payment to Daniels.

Cohen will continue that he is “ashamed” for what he did for Trump because “he is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat.”

“[Trump] once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ­‘s–thole,’” Cohen will say. “This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.”

He also recalls “driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago” when Trump commented that “only black people could live that way.”

“And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid,” Cohen’s statement says.