Blasting Trump As A 'Racist' And 'Conman,' Cohen Accuses President Of Criminality

(CBS News) -- In explosive hours-long public testimony on Capitol Hill, Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, accused the president of a pattern of criminality and deception, calling him a "conman" who couldn't be trusted.

"He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat," Cohen said in his opening statement Wednesday.

In an often tense House Oversight Committee hearing that lasted seven hours, Cohen said the president directed him to lie about illegal payments to silence women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with Mr. Trump. Cohen also accused the president of inflating the value of his properties, lying about business ventures in Russia and knowing about a trove of hacked Democratic emails ahead of their release by WikiLeaks in 2016.