Michael Cohen
© Craig Ruttle/APMichael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves federal court in New York, Aug. 21, 2018.
As former Trump attorney and soon-to-be federal inmate Michael Cohen prepares to begin a three-day gauntlet of Congressional testimony on Tuesday, leaks in the press have detailed what Cohen might say both during his closed-door hearings (before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday and the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday) and his public testimony before the House Oversight Committee. And as was widely expected given his attempts to deflect from his own crimes by agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors, Cohen will reportedly share never-before-revealed details about alleged criminal acts committed by President Trump while in office, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News.

What specific illegal activity will Cohen reveal? Well, it's not 100% clear. The WSJ's source said "Cohen would provide "evidence of criminal conduct since Mr. Trump became president," but other than saying it involved the payoff to Stormy Daniels (aka Stephanie Clifford), they refused to provide more specifics. The $130,000 payoff to Daniels, which was first reported by WSJ in October 2016, allegedly took place during the final months of the presidential race, so it's unclear exactly what illegal behavior could be tied to Trump's time in office.

Though that didn't stop WSJ from venturing a guess:
The hearing would be the first time Mr. Cohen alleges that Mr. Trump committed a crime while in office. While the payments to both women were made in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Trump has faced questions from reporters about his possible knowledge of Mr. Cohen's subsequent reimbursement for the Clifford payment, as well as about whether he had any conversations with Mr. Cohen about efforts to conceal the payment after the Journal first reported its existence in January 2018.
But at least as far as the mainstream media is concerned, Cohen's revelations about alleged criminal conduct and financial improprieties will likely take a back seat to anecdotes about Trump's "lies, racism and cheating" throughout his life. Cohen's "behind-the-scenes" anecdotes about tax cheating, disparaging remarks made by Trump about African Americans and their "lifestyle choices" and other crude and embarrassing behavior will, we imagine, dominate the news cycle as soon as the leaks from Tuesday's closed door hearing hit the tape.
Mr. Cohen's testimony is expected to focus on his "behind-the-scenes" accounts of working for Mr. Trump for over a decade, a period during which Mr. Cohen will say he witnessed "lies, racism and cheating" by Mr. Trump, the person said.

Mr. Cohen is expected to recount racist remarks Mr. Trump allegedly made to him, including instances in which Mr. Trump allegedly questioned the intelligence of African-Americans and criticized their lifestyle choices, the person said.
Last time we heard from Cohen, he allegedly implicated the president in two federal crimes during his plea agreement with federal prosecutors in New York, claiming that Trump directed him to make payoffs to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen MacDougal. But as Republicans who have objected to Cohen's testimony pointed out, Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate Intel Committee about the "Trump Tower Moscow" project back in 2017. And given that Cohen is still scrambling to try and reduce his federal prison sentence, which he is due to begin serving in early May after receiving a 60-day extension, he has every reason to exaggerate to try and convince prosecutors that he can still be useful (despite allegedly lying to them, too). Republicans Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan accused Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the oversight committee, of using Cohen to "attack the president for political gain."

It's also worth noting that these crimes appear to be related to campaign finance violations, suggesting that this could become another major media narrative employed by Democrats to fill the void left by the Russia collusion narrative, which even Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has acknowledged wasn't "necessarily criminal."


Comment: Cohen bombshell renews calls for Trump impeachment - what happened to Russia collusion?


But regardless of what Cohen tells lawmakers, one thing is likely: His public testimony will produce the biggest media circus since the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.