As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, I had a front-row seat to this week’s debacle of a hearing, in which the disgraced and disbarred former lawyer to President Trump, convicted felon Michael Cohen, was invited to Congress to testify. Even more disappointing, however, is that this sideshow circus took place while President Trump was representing our country in Vietnam at the nuclear summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un.
Motivated by their abject hatred of the President, Democrats strategically planned a hearing to upstage his efforts to negotiate North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to personally question Michael Cohen and bring to the forefront a few of the countless problems with his credibility. The foremost of these concerns is the fact that Cohen is the first person in American history convicted of lying to Congress who has been invited back to testify. If he didn’t honor the oath he took the first time, how can we have any assurances that he’ll honor that oath this time?
Additionally, with a legal representative who is a former Clinton operative and hatchet man, Cohen is far from unbiased. Completely discredited and heading to prison soon, Cohen nevertheless spoke to the Oversight Committee for nearly seven hours, yet more questions remain. We still don’t know who is paying for his lawyer, Lanny Davis – a question that seems critical to uncovering his motives. Simply put, we can’t trust a single thing coming out of Michael Cohen’s mouth.
This week’s hearing is a testament to the fact that Democrats are focusing solely on the politics of 2020, not the critical security issues of today. They’re doing everything they can to undermine the President at every turn, and it’s enlightening that this is where their priorities lie. The American people want solutions, and President Trump is working to provide them. He has strengthened our economy and worked to secure our borders, and now Americans want a resolution of the foreign policy challenges that we’ve been facing for years.
While Democrats were holding a hearing in our Nation’s capital for the express purpose of undermining President Trump and destroying his credibility, the President was representing our country on foreign soil and negotiating for our common good. The hearing could easily have been postponed until his return, and the Democrats could have taken their shots at him then.
Our country should always stand united when the President is overseas. What the Democrats did was an absolute disgrace. Politics should always stop at the water’s edge.
Jody Hice, a Republican from Greensboro, represents a portion of Newton County in Congress. Online: hice.house.gov.
