President Trump, speaking in Vietnam on Thursday after the abrupt end of his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, said he was actually “impressed” with his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who told a U.S. House panel grilling him Wednesday that there was no collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.
But Cohen told members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee that while he didn't know of "direct evidence" of improper collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, he had his “suspicions.”
Trump, responding to a question about Cohen’s hearing from ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, said that he thought the Cohen hearing could have been held a few days after his second summit with Kim and that Cohen “lied a lot” but didn’t “lie about one thing.”
“I was actually impressed that he didn’t say, ‘Well, I think there was collusion,’” Trump said. "He said ‘no collusion.’ I was impressed by that.”
Other than that, Trump said Cohen’s performance at the hearing was “pretty shameful.”
Cohen told the committee members he was aware of a Trump adviser’s talks with WikiLeaks about stolen Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 campaign and alleged that as Trump's personal attorney for 10 years he oversaw an array of illicit schemes.
TRUMP WASN'T PREPARED TO LIFT US SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA LEADING TO SUMMIT'S ABRUPT END
“He is a racist. He is a conman. And he is a cheat,” Cohen testified, setting the tone for the hearing. After outlining numerous alleged misdeeds by Trump, Cohen expressed regret and repeated the refrain, “yet I continued to work for him.”
Fox News’ Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
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