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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Michael Cohen's Stunning Testimony Released; Cohen: Trump Knew Stone Talked To WikiLeaks; Rep. Matt Gaetz Threatens Cohen On Twitter; President Trump Departs To Meet Kim Jong Un. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 27, 2019 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[05:30:00] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: -- Cohen says that Don Jr., the president's son -- then-candidate's son -- let him know that that meeting was coming which, of course, makes a liar of the president. But also again, gets to the president knowing about what was really, to date, the biggest example of cooperation, right?

You know, Trump -- the Trump team accepting a meeting from Russia knowing that they were getting these stolen e-mails. I mean, those are -- those are a big deal.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Of course, the president will, as he's done, attack Cohen's credibility. The president's surrogates will attack Cohen's credibility. But it raises the question does Robert Mueller have evidence to further back those claims up?

ROMANS: That is such a good point.

So let's talk about these two -- these two pieces that you've just brought up here that we've been talking about this morning.

Let's talk about WikiLeaks and Roger Stone. This is what Michael Cohen is going to say today.

"In July 2016, days before the Democratic Convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone.

Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of e-mails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of 'wouldn't that be great?'"

Elie Honig, how important is that admission from Michael Cohen?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, NEW JERSEY DIVISION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: It's important to get those phone records, right? If I'm a prosecutor -- if I'm Robert Mueller looking at that piece of

testimony, I'd go OK, good, we have a date. We can probably narrow it down -- July 2016. Was there a call from Roger Stone into the Trump Tower or Trump orb or Donald Trump, himself?

If you can get that, that's what we mean when we talk about corroboration. Something that backs up an important part of a story.

And in looking at that connection between whether the president knew about the hack -- the WikiLeaks release -- remember again, the DOJ has, to an extent, corroborated that.

In Roger Stone's indictment, DOJ talks about how various senior Trump campaign officials knew about and directed Roger Stone to get in WikiLeaks. And at one point, there's that sort of conspicuous use of the passive voice where it says one of the senior Trump campaign officials was directed to get in touch with WikiLeaks.

ROMANS: Right.

HONIG: And there was a lot of speculation who and why the passive voice --

ROMANS: Right.

HONIG: -- and who would have been directing a senior Trump campaign official. So I consider that sort of partial corroboration --

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Sure.

HONIG: -- of what Cohen says there.

BRIGGS: Well, going beyond partial corroboration there, Elie, Roger Stone is on trial. March 14th he has his next hearing. How much more pivotal does this testimony make that trial?

HONIG: Yes, that trial -- look, if it goes to trial, if Stone doesn't plead out or get pardoned, we will see that trial and this will be a key piece of it.

And remember, Stone is just on trial for lying. There are things he lied about they can prove with his own texts.

But in any trial, there's collateral damage. There's other people who are not sitting at the defendant's table --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HONIG: -- who take any damage and aren't there to object and cross- examine. And I think if Stone goes to trial we're going to see these senior Trump campaign officials -- it was plural in the document -- named and identified.

ROMANS: Jim?

SCIUTTO: You know, the other -- the other point about that that's interesting is that that response from the president -- again, according to Cohen's account here, "Wouldn't that be great?" -- reminds you of Donald Trump Jr.'s response to the offer from Russians for that meeting in Trump Tower.

You remember, the e-mail -- you know, "I love it" -- if that's true. That was his response in an e-mail when he was told that the Russians would be bringing damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

And that gets to another issue here is that when Russia or WikiLeaks reached out to offer help there was no questioning of it -- again, based on these accounts and based on e-mails that we've seen before -- from the Trump campaign. There was willingness. There was excitement about it.

And that's another -- that's another -- that's another issue because that goes to the question of at least interest in cooperation with a country that was interfering in the election.

ROMANS: The president, on the campaign trail, said Russia, are you listening? I mean, he --

BRIGGS: To Russia, are you listening? He glorified --

ROMANS: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- WikiLeaks.

And just for some of you just joining us now at 5:33 Eastern time -- some of you just waking up and just turning on the television, we are discussing some bombshell remarks that Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, will make in public here on CNN. We will televise it at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

Jim, with the important context that President Trump has made more than 8,000 false and/or misleading statements during his presidency, why should we believe Michael Cohen?

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a fair question. And listen, the president, all the way from Vietnam as he's preparing for a face-to-face meeting with the North Korean leader on a nuclear issue, is attacking Cohen's credibility, which is something he's done before. And you're going to hear that from all the president's surrogates as well.

You know, it's interesting, though -- you look at this letter -- because Cohen says that the thing that he lied to Congress about was those Trump Tower discussions, right? You know, saying that they ended earlier than, in fact, they did. They went well into the campaign.

[05:35:03] Cohen says that his testimony that he gave -- his false testimony that he gave to Congress was reviewed by President Trump's personal lawyers. So, according to Cohen, they knew that he was giving false testimony there and that involves to some degree -- at least indirectly, that involves the president in that false testimony.

So that's a qualifier, in effect, on what has become the president's chief attack line on Cohen, that he's a liar, et cetera. And we should line that up against this -- yes.

And the president also said today that Cohen was one of many lawyers that worked with him. That's just not true. Cohen was deeply involved in all of the president's business and personal affairs for more than a decade.

And you remember, in that famous Air Force One denial about the hush money payments to those women, the president teed up and said speak to my lawyer --

ROMANS: Right.

SCIUTTO: -- who's Michael Cohen.

So, Cohen was involved. And based on Cohen's testimony, Trump's lawyers were involved in his false testimony on Capitol Hill. So, you know, more difficult to make that argument that he's a liar and you had no involvement with him when Cohen's saying they knew it.

ROMANS: Well, I mean, you can see through this testimony just how deeply involved Michael Cohen was in so many aspects of the president's life, right down to writing threatening letters to the college board and his high school and his colleges, saying never release his grades.

I mean, he was the president's pit bull.

BRIGGS: Yes.

ROMANS: He was the president's pit bull.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BRIGGS: Elie, a lot of this will come down to the political and we know this. Trump supporters are with him through hell and high water. He is at some 89-90 percent with the Republican Party. But a lot of this will be legal.

To you, what is the most potentially legally damaging thing that Michael Cohen will present today?

HONIG: It will all come to his credibility, which will all turn on corroboration, right? How much can be proven by things where you don't have to just take Michael Cohen's word at face value. How many things can Michael Cohen produce that he backs up with a document or with something DOJ has said.

And again, think of it sort of as fence posts in testimony, right? You have a witness like Michael Cohen -- he's inherently flawed. He's pled guilty to crimes already, he's pled guilty to lying already.

That's where you start out with somebody like this. And so it's hard to take a witness like that and say just believe him just because -- just because he's made a personal transformation.

What you have to do is tie what he's saying to other things. And it looks like from this opening statement that Michael Cohen does have some of those documents, some of those receipts. And importantly, some of the things he's saying, again, have been hinted at or sort of reflected in prior DOJ filings.

And, Jim was just talking about the false testimony at the DOJ and I circled that when I saw it. As Jim noted, Cohen says, "I ran that by Trump's personal attorneys." Now, we don't know exactly who that is. He's had a lot of different personal attorneys.

But that brought back to mind when Michael Cohen pled guilty to that false testimony, DOJ alleged that Cohen had provided cooperation about, quote, "the circumstances of preparing and circulating his false testimony."

So even a couple of months ago we had an indication that DOJ knew that Michael Cohen ran that testimony by other people, preparing and circulating. And now, we have an indication from Michael Cohen who those people might -- some of those people might have been. And again, that's another indicator of credibility.

BRIGGS: Yes.

ROMANS: Fascinating.

Jim, there's another point I want to bring up here -- something in this testimony that I think I want to mention again.

This is Don Jr. telling Donald Trump about that Trump Tower meeting with Russians. Now, this is just fascinating, what Michael Cohen is going to say. He's going to recount this experience he had with the president.

"I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father's desk which, in itself, was unusual. People didn't just walk behind Mr. Trump's desk to talk to him.

I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could hear clearly, and saying, 'The meeting is all set.' I remember Mr. Trump saying, 'OK, good. Let me know.'"

Wow.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, listen, if that's true and if it is correctly Donald Trump, Jr. speaking about the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 -- and the timing there seems to be consistent with that -- that would make a liar of the president, right, and it would make a liar of many of the surrogates who have denied repeatedly since the revelation of that.

And remember, there were already lies that had been exposed about that meeting. You'll remember the famous statement composed on Air Force One in the wake of that as the story was coming out, which the president took part in, saying that the meeting was primarily about adoptions when, in fact, the reason they took the meeting was they were expecting this damaging information on Hillary Clinton. All exposed to -- you know, e-mails documenting that based on what Don Jr. knew about it, and saying "I love it" when he found that out.

[05:40:04] ROMANS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So, you know, they've already been made liars and that's been documented. If Cohen's testimony is true, he's saying that the president lied then and has lied repeatedly since then about his knowledge of that meeting.

And again, as I said earlier, it raises the question is it only Cohen saying this or did other cooperating witnesses --

BRIGGS: Right.

SCIUTTO: -- say this, right? Remember, there are loads of folks -- I mean, Rick Gates, the deputy campaign chairman who was deeply involved at that -- at that stage -- he's been cooperating with the special counsel.

Have they testified to the same and crucially, does Robert Mueller, who has enormous resources -- does he have other ways of corroborating that. It's key, it's key.

BRIGGS: So we don't know a lot about how Republicans will attack the credibility of Michael Cohen. Certainly, they will -- Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and others on the House Oversight Committee.

But we do know this. We have a stunning tweet ahead of all of this from a United States congressman. And you might be shocked he's a United States congressman when I read you the tweet from Matt Gaetz ahead of this testimony from Michael Cohen.

He tweeted, "Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot."

He has since apologized and deleted that tweet.

But there are a couple of law professors, Elie, who --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- feel this is textbook witness tampering. Ryan Goodman, from NYU, says it is witness tampering. Laurence Tribe, of Harvard, agrees.

Did he cross a legal line here?

HONIG: Well, so legally, I think it's actually interesting. Look, it's a low-life cheap shot. And I used to do mob cases and I've seen all sorts of threats, but when you start talking about the things that he said about the wife when Cohen's in prison, that is beyond the pale. I will say, though, there is a distinction in my mind between threatening consequences outside of court. And I think the threat against the father-in-law that the president made previously carries some teeth. And I think the implication there was if you testify, we will open an investigation of your father. This coming from the president who has the ability to do that.

What is generally accepted -- it's not pretty but is generally accepted is what I would call sort of smack talk from defense lawyers.

Every cooperator I ever put on, the defense lawyer said either to me or the media, I'm going to tear this guy apart. I'm going to expose him as a liar. I'm going to expose, perhaps, his extramarital affairs. So that kind of thing is sort of seen as within the rules of the bout, I guess.

But the part about -- at the end about is your wife going to stay faithful to you while you're in jail -- I think that may well have crossed the line.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HONIG: It's disgraceful conduct by the representative.

ROMANS: Laurence Tribe, at Harvard -- he said this is witness -- "criminal witness tampering in plain sight. No immunity is available. He deserves to be indicted and, of course, needs to be kicked out of Congress."

Jim, I mean --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: You're -- I mean, you're a veteran of Washington. I don't think I've seen something like this before.

SCIUTTO: He -- and, you know, he sort of apologized, right?

BRIGGS: Right.

SCIUTTO: I mean, first of all, he said it was witness testing, not tampering.

ROMANS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I mean, what else it is, right? And it fits a pattern because as you noted, the president has already, in effect, said -- and I'm not the lawyer here but he certainly threatened a witness talking about investigating his father.

And the idea that he also defended it by saying it was getting to Cohen's credibility. What his wife's faithfulness to him while he's in prison has to do with credibility, it just -- you know, there's no explanation for that. It's just dirty -- it's dirty.

I have to say, though, it's -- we've seen so much of this kind of thing.

ROMANS: I know.

SCIUTTO: It fits a pattern, and a pattern that, keep in mind, the president himself has not shied away from. And the trouble is that yes, the delete is tweeted (sic) but in this world that we live in that piece of information is now out there. And if Gaetz's intention, and whoever helped him along with this or encouraged him to do this -- intention was to raise that thought in Michael Cohen's mind.

It's done, you know -- it's done.

BRIGGS: Some felt a prior tweet from President Trump was witness intimidation when all of this began, and some feel that's why Michael Cohen delayed this testimony initially.

I want to ask you about some of the language that we apologize for if your children happen to be up at this point, but another thing Michael Cohen will testify --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- to.

"He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a 'shithole.' That was when Barack Obama was President of the United States."

Now, that language, of course, we have heard before. That was just over a year ago when talking about TPS and things of the like.

Jim, how damaging, if at all, will accusations like that be?

ROMANS: Politically.

[05:45:00] SCIUTTO: Well, it -- you know, listen, it -- like a lot of this stuff it fits a pattern with this president, right? I mean, the lying certainly does and the lies about the interactions with Russia and so on.

So, Cohen's testimony -- while the president will attack him for his credibility -- is consistent with prior lies about interactions with Russia, including the Trump Tower meeting.

So you've got to look at the pattern. That's what I know smart investigators like Elie Honig do. It's also what intelligence professionals do -- look at the pattern. It fits a pattern and that adds to the believability of it, right?

And then, when you look -- when you look at this, it fits a pattern as well, right, because you had witnesses describe the president using similar terminology as president about African -- about African countries.

Now, I wasn't in the room when the president used those terms during the campaign, but it's not taken out of nowhere because we've heard similar accounts --

ROMANS: True.

SCIUTTO: -- before. And where does that leave us because as you said before, Dave Briggs, the president maintains 80-some-odd percent --

BRIGGS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- support among his party and his strategy seems to be keeping that as solid as he can. And, you know, damn the consequences --

BRIGGS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- as it were with Democrats and with many Independents.

BRIGGS: Sure.

Elie, Jim spoke well about why, potentially, we should not -- should not believe Michael Cohen.

But I want to ask you about his cooperation. Is there still the potential for a reduced sentence? And, therefore, if he's proven to be lying again to Congress, presumably there will be no assistance with his sentence. But --

ROMANS: So he has every reason to tell the truth.

BRIGGS: My point being, does he, as Christine said, have every reason to be 100 percent truthful today?

HONIG: Well, he certainly has self-interested incentives, Dave and Christine. I think you could argue it incentivizes him to tell the truth. And I think Republicans will argue, on the committee, it incentivizes him to lie because he's just trying to tell interesting stories that will please the prosecutors so they will go back.

So just -- I won't turn this into law school but there is a way that a prosecutor can go back to a judge after sentencing -- it's called Rule 35 -- and say judge, this person has given us additional or extraordinary cooperation and so you should reduce his sentence further. I've done it. It's fairly rare, but I did it five-10 times probably in my career as a prosecutor.

I do think Michael Cohen is aiming for that. I think when you take the fact that he -- remember, he postponed his surrender date to federal prison from early March back to early May. It gives him more time.

So if I had to guess I would -- I would assume that Cohen's lawyers are working. You need a prosecutor to sponsor you. Cohen's lawyers can't just go in and ask for it themselves. But have a deal or are going to ask for deal from whether it's Mueller or the Southern District, if my guy continues to cooperate -- if he fully cooperates with congressional subpoenas -- and today we're going to see part of that -- then would you be open to the possibility of going back in for Rule 35 and seeking a sentence reduction.

ROMANS: Fascinating.

HONIG: So -- but it plays both ways. Again, I think there's one common sense read of look, his incentive now is to tell the truth, and I think it certainly is. If he gets caught in a lie now, not only is he not getting Rule 35, he's getting charged again.

BRIGGS: Yes.

HONIG: But again, Republicans are going to say what defense lawyers say --

ROMANS: Yes.

HONIG: -- about cooperators all the time, which is they just want to please the prosecutor because you know who he needs to be happy to make this motion for him? The prosecutor.

ROMANS: Well, the American people are certainly going to be able to make up their own mind because this is going to be televised in public.

BRIGGS: An important point.

ROMANS: Elie Honig, Jim Sciutto, thanks, guys. You are both on "NEW DAY" in just another 15 or 20 minutes. So thank you very much.

Michael Cohen's testimony before the House begins at 10:00 a.m. Join CNN for live coverage and analysis all morning.

EARLY START back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:50:51] ROMANS: All right.

Michael Cohen set to testify later today in just a few hours -- actually, a little more than four hours -- and the testimony is just blockbuster here. He is going to call the President of the United States a racist, a con man, and a cheat. And that is going to be public testimony for all the world to see.

Josh Rogin and Zach Wolf are with us to talk a little bit about what we -- what we know this morning.

BRIGGS: Yes, Josh Rogin of "The Washington Post" and a CNN contributor. Let's start with you, sir.

What, to you, is the lead of all of these 20 pages, and what could change the Trump presidency?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think the clearest lead is that President Trump was in touch with WikiLeaks, which his own Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said is a non- state foreign intelligence operation aimed at attacking the United States.

If that single claim is substantiated there goes our predisposed notions of whether or not there was collusion, conspiracy -- you name it.

It was obvious at the time that WikiLeaks was working with Russian intelligence services. Our own intelligence agencies have borne that out in the -- in their investigations since.

And if the President of the United States -- if it's true that he was aware that his own surrogates were directly conspiring with Julian Assange to attack his opponent during the election, I think that's the biggest game changer that is -- there possibly could be.

And then --

ROMANS: And in that testimony, when you -- when you read that exchange that the -- that the -- that Michael Cohen says he saw between Mr. Trump on the phone with Mr. Stone -- on speakerphone. And the president responded by saying, "Wouldn't that be great?"

That sounds, Zach, believable. That sounds like something the president -- the way he talks, what he would say -- "Wouldn't that be great?"

ZACHARY WOLF, DIGITAL DIRECTOR, CNN POLITICS: Yes. I think there's a lot in here that sounds like -- sounds like sort of the man that we see publicly, the way that he's described his talking. Sort of the asides that he makes. There are things that you can sort of see in your mind's eye him saying to his -- to his confidant, Michael Cohen.

And I think that will help sort of Michael Cohen's credibility, although what we're talking about today is going to be a lot different at the end of the day because Republicans are just going to slice and dice him, I think, as they try to tear holes in what he's going to -- he's going to say.

BRIGGS: And also, we should point out this discussion that we had mentioned earlier in the program between Don Jr. and his father. Michael Cohen recounts the situation in which Michael Cohen walks -- or excuse me, Don Jr. walks behind his father's desk, whispers in his father's ear about that meeting in Trump Tower with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

And per that meeting, Don Jr. says the meeting is all set. Michael Cohen remembers Mr. Trump saying, "OK, good. Let me know."

Should we believe -- why should we believe Michael Cohen, Josh?

ROGIN: Well, I think Michael Cohen is testifying under the penalty of perjury and since he's already messed that up once he knows the consequences.

But I think this is actually one of the weaker claims in his testimony considering the fact that he doesn't actually say that he knows what meeting they were referring to. And anyway, he only realized that that was the meeting that they were referring to, in his view, well after the fact when the news came out.

I think if you made a list of 10 really shocking things that Michael Cohen is about to testify, this would be on that list. It wouldn't be in the top three.

But as Jim Sciutto said earlier, this is a pattern of behavior of a president lying in public, seeking to make connections with the Russians. Seeking to do business with the Russians, covering up all those contacts. And, Michael Cohen was in the middle of it and he's in a position to know and a position to testify to a whole range of those details.

ROMANS: This testimony is also going to show Michael Cohen is going to, in his prepared testimony, say that the president, all through the election, was actively negotiating in Russia for a Moscow Trump Tower, Zach. And this is something that publicly he has said that he wasn't doing. That he didn't have business with Russia.

But he was -- you know, they didn't think that he was going to win. This is what Michael Cohen is going to say. Or they didn't think they were going to win. So the president and presumably, people all around him all trying to brush up their business ties, Zach.

[05:55:10] WOLF: Right, and get something out of this run for president. Sort of the cache of being this nominee they could sort of trade in on that.

It does sort of go to -- because this is -- this is the one thing that Cohen seems to be the most qualified to talk about because he was apparently the one who was going through these negotiations, who was meeting with people -- you know, meeting with Russians. And this is the one claim -- of all of them, this is one claim where he has kind of the most credibility, at least in terms of what we've learned about him from court filings and the things that he's pled guilty to.

BRIGGS: And remember, Michael Cohen is a man who once told "Vanity Fair" he would quote, "Take a bullet for Mr. Trump."

But it all makes, Josh, for an astonishing split-screen today. In just a couple of minutes, President Trump will leave from his hotel to go have dinner --

ROMANS: Any moment, really.

BRIGGS: -- the first face-to-face in Hanoi with Kim Jong Un. Sarah Sanders and Mick Mulvaney, the chief of staff, will be alongside.

But, Josh, talk about the split-screen that is about to unfold, and what are your expectations for this second summit with the North Korean leader.

ROGIN: Yes. I mean, it really couldn't get any crazier.

First of all, after President Trump has his dinner with Chairman Kim in a couple -- just a little bit of time at the Metropole hotel in Hanoi -- he's going to go back to his hotel and watch this testimony and probably rage-tweet about it.

Well into what is going to be the evening in Hanoi, that can't help his preparation for what will be a pivotal showdown with Kim in the next day over some very important details of nuclear negotiations, OK. He should be well-rested for that and he should be preparing for that.

And then tomorrow, of course, all bets are off. And anyone who tells you that they know what President Trump is going to do or say in that meeting with Chairman Kim or afterwards in the -- if he has a press conference -- is lying because anything could happen.

And there have been these extensive negotiations between the Trump administration representative Steve Biegun and the North Koreans over what can we offer, what can they get. And none of that really matters once President Trump gets into the room and he can really strike any bargain he pleases.

And after that, we're going to be left with this sort of decision whether to follow up on what's going on with the president's domestic scandal or what's going on with whatever it is that this meeting produces. And, you know, that's a distraction for Americans, it's a distraction for the president.

It's also a distraction for the world. We, here in Washington, talk about this Russia scandal all day, every day for good reason. It's a big deal. But this is a rare chance where everyone in the world -- all over the world is going to be focused on our president.

And this is what they're going to see. They're going to see a president unhinged -- just sort of lashing out in all directions and totally distracted from the important issues at hand, which affect not only American national security but the security of our allies and partners all around the world.

ROMANS: We're looking at a picture, guys. You probably can't see it where you are but we're looking at a picture of the president's hotel where he's expected any moment to leave for this first meeting.

Zach Wolf, real quick, button it up for us. Sorry, we've already said goodbye to Zach Wolf.

BRIGGS: We have to say goodbye to our guests.

ROMANS: Josh Rogin, thank you so much, guys, for walking us through this.

But this is where you're going to see the president any second now, where he's going to go for this first face-to-face meeting of this summit with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

BRIGGS: And the fears are, by some who watch this situation -- even reportedly by diplomats within the administration -- that the president might be willing to accept less in exchange for changing the news cycle back here.

Donald Trump is already on the board on Twitter, calling Michael Cohen -- saying he's disbarred, he's a liar, he did bad things unrelated to Trump. It is going to be an extraordinary day --

ROMANS: It sure is.

BRIGGS: -- in this nation -- 10:00 a.m. that testimony begins.

ROMANS: "NEW DAY" picks up for us, right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, February 27th, 6:00 here in New York.

And breaking overnight, a document -- this document that has the potential to redefine the Trump presidency. While you were sleeping, CNN obtained this 20-page statement that Michael Cohen is prepared to deliver to Congress in public today.

Cohen is the president's former lawyer fixer, and now a convicted felon -- convicted for lying, so that hangs over what he will say today. But what he will say includes a half-dozen, maybe more, new allegations, each of which in and of themselves would be huge scandals. Presidency-threatening scandals.

At the top of the list a claim we have not heard in public before that Cohen witnessed a conversation in July of 2016 where Donald Trump was told in advance that WikiLeaks was planning a massive dump of e-mails that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

END