According to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, Michael Cohen’s “expected ‘bombshell’ testimony didn’t explode” (March 1, Page A7).

Rather, Thiessen wrote, Cohen’s Feb. 27 testimony to Congress about President Trump offered “exculpatory” reasons for Trump’s behavior in paying off Stormy Daniels, “cleared Trump of the charge” of directing Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower project and offered no evidence of collusion with the Russians in the election.

Thiessen noted that several Trump offenses discussed by Cohen were not crimes and concluded there was “no evidence to advance the cause of impeachment.”

Cohen did offer into evidence two canceled checks from Trump’s personal funds. Each was for $35,000 and was made out to Cohen; one was signed personally by Trump while he was president. The checks were two of the payments made to Cohen as reimbursement for the $130,000 borrowed from his home equity line to pay hush money to Trump’s nine-month paramour, former Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal, to quash her National Enquirer story a few days before the 2016 election.

This was a criminal violation of campaign finance law, to which Cohen pleaded guilty, with Trump unnamed in the indictment as co-conspirator “Individual 1.”

But evidence of a crime is not required for impeachment. Yes, the House had evidence that President Bill Clinton committed a crime (lying under oath). But none of the three articles of impeachment for President Richard Nixon – obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress – even mentions the violation of a criminal statute (although Nixon was clearly involved in the Watergate break-in and coverup).

President Trump (along with others implicated by Cohen’s testimony) has more to fear from the ongoing investigations by the Southern District of New York and the state of New York into potential white-collar crimes – bank fraud, insurance fraud and tax evasion.

Paula Singer

Lyman