On "Cohen is a convicted liar, and therefore his testimony is worthless"

That argument is being floated in various right wing circles.

It is fundamentally flawed, and it is important to understand why.

Taking that argument of "he's a convicted liar, so what he has to say doesn't matter", you have to go back a step and consider:

And what was he convicted of lying to Congress about?

The thing that he lied to Congress about was, in fact, an attempt to conceal the fact that negotiations about Trump Tower continued well into the campaign.

So the "he's a convicted liar" argument hinges on admitting that Trump was still dealing with Moscow when the campaign was on.

The Republicans can't have it both ways.

They can't say "Cohen is a convicted liar" and "Trump wasn't negotiating with Russia during the campaign".

In order to agree that "Cohen is a liar", they have to admit that Trump was dealing with Russians.

And that bring us to the most important point about "Cohen is a liar".


Why did Cohen lie, and to whose benefit did Cohen lie?


COHEN LIED TO PROTECT TRUMP.

It's not really a problem for Cohen if he was dealing with Russians on Trump's behalf for well into the campaign. Cohen had no independent reason to lie about that subject to Congress.

The only reason for Cohen to have lied to Congress was for Trump's benefit.

Clearly, that incentive is no longer present. Having had documentary evidence of these negotiations presented to him by investigators, or knowing that they had such evidence, during his criminal proceeding Cohen could no longer maintain that lie without digging himself a deeper hole by lying to the investigators.