Michael Cohen came into his congressional testimony today vowing to destroy his former boss, President Trump.
His testimony, however, is providing the president a boost.
Over the course of several hours of testimony, Cohen debunked a number of allegations Democrats have lodged against the president.
Most prominently, Cohen knocked down a central claim of the so-called Steele Dossier, the compilation of anti-Trump gossip the DNC and Clinton campaign created in partnership with the political agitating group, Fusion GPS.
During an exchange with Rep. Ralph Norman (D-S.C.), Cohen said he’s never been to Prague, as was claimed in the Steele Dossier:
NORMAN: “Have you ever been to Prague?”
COHEN: “I’ve never been to Prague.”
NORMAN: “Never have?”
COHEN: “I’ve never been to the Czech Republic.”
NORMAN: “I yield the balance of my time.”
In his opening testimony, Cohen also knocked down a BuzzFeed report that Trump had instructed him to lie during his previous congressional testimony. BuzzFeed had reported that Trump told Cohen to lie about his intent to one day build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a project still being discussed during the 2016 campaign. In reality, Cohen acknowledged, Trump did not instruct him to lie, although he maintains he felt that's what Trump wanted:
I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false – our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.
Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates.
In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell 5 me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.
The Steele Dossier — which formed the basis for the FBI’s decision to launch a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign — also alleged there was a tape featuring prostitutes in a Moscow hotel peeing on one another as a form of entertainment to Trump.
Cohen likewise shot that down as well.
On the campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, Cohen said he wouldn’t go that far, either. Instead Cohen would only say that he found Trump and Putin’s mutual praise for each other to be odd.
Cohen defused other anti-Trump rumors as well. Last year reports surfaced that the parent company of the National Enquirer bought the rights to a story about a Trump “love child” he fathered in the 1980s. Cohen acknowledged this payment was made, but only to quash a rumor that wasn’t actually true.
“Is there a love child?” Rep. Jackie Speier asked.
“There is not to the best of my knowledge,” Cohen responded.
Another rumor Cohen shotdown is that Trump indirectly purchased the footage from an elevator camera, on which he could be seen striking his wife.
“It doesn’t exist,” Cohen said of the tape. Further, “I don't believe Mr. Trump ever struck Mrs. Trump ever. I don't believe it.“
Cohen’s testimony is damaging to Trump’s character, as his former lawyer paints him as mendacious and racially insensitive, but the core of Democrats’ case against the president rests on actual acts of illegality, and on those fronts, Cohen still seems to be serving in his erstwhile role as Trump’s fixer.