announcer: this is cnn breaking news. get used to that breaking news graphic and sound because we have it all morning. we have in our hands 20 pages of what michael cohen will be testifying publicly to today in congress. we got a preview. we thought we would have to wait until 10:00 this morning. we actually have what he mans to say here. could he backtrack and not say it? i suppose. but we have is it in black and white. and there are many things that he plans to say that place president trump squarely in the room for criminal activity. let s go through it. we want to bring back our highly esteemed panel. we had jim sciutto who is with the president in vietnam. we had ellie, abby, mj lee and former director of national against james clapper. i think we all the right guests for this. here s what we want to start with. and, jay, let s talk about this. this is the moscow tower project
to giving this false testimony, in his plea documents and sfnsing documentsfn sentencing documents, they certified that michael cohen gave testimony about circumstances of preparing and circulating his false testimony. preparing and circulating. what that told me at the time, other people were involved in reviewing this, other people were involved in putting this lie forward, and now michael cohen says at least some of the people who were being alluded it to there were trump s personal attorneys. abby, this not abe a pleasan or comfortable day for the people around president trump. obviously they know all of this is happening. they have been reading michael cohen s written statement that he prepares to give. and it s just going to be hard, i would imagine, for them today to figure out the how to thread this needle when all this is happening on congress. what are you hearing? absolutely. i think there are two things happening here. one, it s that the president is obviously thinkin
bank, things we haven t seen before. but this wikileaks piece is potentially is the most has the most legal jeopardy, has the highest stakes. and what cnn reported two weeks ago, there would be evidence to back it zplup abby, you know what the president has said about this. what do you see? i think what you re going to hear from president trump and his allies obviously is that michael cohen is not a reliable person on that, that he has a lot of interest in trying to implicate the president in order to lighten his load, lighten his sentence on the charges that he already faces. but, of course, the counterargument to that is that if he is lying in that way, lying to congress and lying to the special counsel, he could make his situation worse. so he he is very much incentivized to not say something that s untrue in an attempt to lighten the sentence then turns out to be not true and he ends up being worse off. but what these two elements i think really speak to that is
alluded to something big that s going to happen. which people inferred was a dump of his opponent s e-mails. so i think this whole thing with michael cohen just affirms what many people already suspected. i do think he s credible, i can t conceive why he would lie under oath under this circumstance, you know, on his way to jail. and so i think what he what he s going to say is truthful. and so this, to me, is, you know, affirming all the puzzles and it isn t a smoking gun, it certainly is a warm barrel. i believe you re mixing metaphors, director. but we want to bring in abby who s reporting on how the trump administration and white house is responding to all this. so the fact, abby, that for the first time we are hear under oath in open testimony of this