‘He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat.’

♦

‘I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man.’

♦

‘He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did.’

♦

‘Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations

throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he

never expected to win.’♦

‘I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty.’

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump’s longtime lawyer andfixer accused him on Wednesdayof an expansive pattern of lies andcriminality, offering a damningportrayal of life inside the presi-dent’s orbit where he said advis-ers sacrificed integrity for prox-imity to power.

Michael D. Cohen, who repre-sented Mr. Trump for a decade,laid out for Congress for the firsttime a series of deceptions by thepresident. He charged that Mr.Trump lied to the public aboutbusiness interests in Russia, liedto reporters about stolen Demo-cratic emails and told Mr. Cohen tolie about hush payments to coverup sexual misconduct.

The accusations, aired at a day-long hearing before the HouseOversight and Reform Commit-tee, exposed a dark underside ofMr. Trump’s business and politicalworlds in the voice of one of the ul-timate insiders. Perhaps no closeassociate has turned on a presi-dent in front of Congress in suchdramatic fashion and with suchhigh stakes since John Dean testi-fied against President Richard M.Nixon during the Watergate scan-dal.

“He is a racist. He is a con man.And he is a cheat,” Mr. Cohen said

of the president. Mr. Cohen, whohas pleaded guilty to lying underoath to Congress, among othercrimes, said he did so to protectMr. Trump. “I am not protectingMr. Trump anymore,” he said.

While the details have been dif-ferent, his portrait of the presidentbroadly resembles those providedby others who have split with Mr.Trump, including former aides,business associates and even hisonetime ghostwriter, who likewisehave described a president whobullies, dissembles and cheats toserve his own interests.

But it remained unclearwhether Mr. Cohen’s testimony

COHEN ACCUSES TRUMP OF LIES AND COVER-UPS

PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Republicans Assail Daylong House Hearingas ‘Charade’ Aimed at Ousting President

By PETER BAKER and NICHOLAS FANDOS

ENCORE President Trump re-united with North Korea’s KimJong-un in Hanoi. Page A9.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A14

VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,252 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019

C M Y K Nxxx,2019-02-28,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

U(D54G1D)y+"!;![!#!}

It had long been considered adangerous crossing, with morethan 200 commuter trains barrel-ing by every day, traveling up to80 miles per hour — even asstreams of cars waited to driveover the tracks.

It was so troubling that it wasone of seven hazardous crossingsalong a 20-mile stretch of Long Is-land Rail Road track that werescheduled to be eliminated.

The construction work at thecrossing in Nassau County wasset to begin next year; planscalled for a bridge for trains andan underpass for vehicles. Butthat was not soon enough to avoida rush-hour tragedy on Tuesday.

Two Long Island Rail Roadtrains traveling in opposite direc-tions slammed into a vehicle thathad apparently driven around thecrossing gates on School Street inWestbury. Three people, all ofthem inside the vehicle, werekilled.

Passengers on the two trainsscrambled to safety, fleeingflames that they worried wouldengulf one train and dodging de-bris that smashed through thefront of the other. For a brief, terri-fying moment, rails twisted, metal

crunched, windows shattered andeach train wobbled. Panicked pas-sengers dreaded that the carswould tip over before they couldget out.

Of the hundreds of people on thetrains, seven were taken to Nas-

sau University Medical Center.Three were admitted, doctors atthe hospital said.

On Wednesday, officials werestill determining why the vehiclehad worked its way around cross-

Unsafe Rail Crossing Was to Be Replaced. Tragedy Struck First.This article is by James Barron,

Patrick McGeehan and Emma G.Fitzsimmons.

Two Long Island Rail Road trains hit a vehicle on the tracks on Tuesday, killing three people.ULI SEIT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A24

NEW DELHI — Pakistan saidWednesday that it downed two In-dian fighter jets and captured a pi-lot, escalating hostilities betweenthe nuclear-armed neighbors aday after Indian warplanes struckinside Pakistani territory for thefirst time in five decades.

The rapid turn of events raisedfears that the historical animos-ities between India and Pakistancould be steering them toward an-other war.

Prime Minister Imran Khan ofPakistan urged India to settle mat-ters through talks, referring to thenuclear weapons both countrieshold and the risk of further escala-tion.

“All big wars have been due tomiscalculation. No one knew howthe war would end,” he said in atelevised speech. “My question toIndia is that given the weapons wehave, can we afford miscalcula-tion?”

Tensions have been rising sincea suicide bombing two weeks agothat hit an Indian paramilitaryconvoy in Kashmir, the disputedterritory that has been a chronicflash point. Expectations that di-plomacy and calls for calm wouldde-escalate the crisis have yet toshow any obvious result.

In New Delhi, officials con-firmed that an Indian Air Force pi-lot was in Pakistani custody, com-plicating an already tough land-scape for Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi ahead of hotly contestedelections this spring.

Indian opposition politiciansseized on what they saw as the op-portunity the crisis presented: 21opposition parties issued a state-ment Wednesday to condemn Mr.Modi for his “politicization” of thenation’s armed forces and the cur-rent “Pakistani misadventure.” Aslickly produced video circulated

Pakistan Captures Indian Pilot,Raising Fears of Spiraling Crisis

By MARIA ABI-HABIB and HARI KUMAR

Continued on Page A10

WASHINGTON — He hasspent months inside his Park Ave-nue apartment glued to cablenews, his legal bills growing andfederal prosecutors amassing evi-dence against him they would useas leverage.

He watched his onetime friendand former boss, now the presi-dent of the United States, smearhim on Twitter and make vague,public threats about his family.

His work for Donald J. Trump,and the lies he told about it, aresending him to prison for years.

On Tuesday, his law license wasrevoked.

On Wednesday, Michael D. Co-hen exacted his revenge.

It was a nasty, public breakup ofa New York relationship forgedover a decade that was a mix ofthe bond between a father andson, the professional distance of alawyer and client, and — as Mr.Cohen and associates have de-scribed it — the blind devotion of a

henchman to a crime boss.“People that follow Mr. Trump

as I did blindly are going to sufferthe same consequences that I’msuffering,” he told a packed hear-ing of the House Committee onOversight and Reform — a bluntwarning to congressional Repub-licans he said have assumed thesame role as Mr. Trump’s protec-tors that he played for years.

During hours of lurid testimony,the president’s once-loyal lawyerand fixer recalled shady businessdeals and racist comments, andspoke in devastating, uncomfort-able detail about his private con-versations with the man he hadidolized and still refers to only as“Mr. Trump.”

Such deference did not keephim from painting a damning por-trait of the president, includingMr. Trump’s attempts to dodgeVietnam War service and his ef-forts to strong-arm academic in-

A Long New York RelationshipHas a Messy, Public Breakup

By MARK MAZZETTI and MAGGIE HABERMAN

Continued on Page A18

The next big Instagram star could berooting around in your trash can rightnow. The opossum Starfish, above, hasa legion of admirers. PAGE D1

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

Cuddly Vermin VideosA conference in Spain was fertile groundfor Huawei, despite an American cam-paign against the company. PAGE B5

BUSINESS B1-6

Speedy 5G Bests PoliticsFor the Afghan women who send theirsons to war, the promise of steadyincome dulls the threat of loss. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

Marching Off to Deadly Duty

The legislation, which requires back-ground checks for all firearms pur-chases, is unlikely to get through theRepublican-controlled Senate. PAGE A21

NATIONAL A12-22

House Passes Gun Control BillAs basketball players at Mississippishowed last weekend, taking a kneeduring the national anthem can drawattention to a local concern. PAGE B7

SPORTSTHURSDAY B7-12

Not Necessarily a Protest

An arbitrator accused Fox executives ofa deceit in divvying up profits for thecrime show “Bones.” PAGE B1

Fox Is Told to Pay $178 MillionAs the Chinese tech giant expands inCanada, investments and advertisinghaven’t erased fears of spying. PAGE A11

Hockey Night With Huawei

Gaspar Noé is used to people getting alittle upset with his movies. But thathasn’t been the case with “Climax,” hislatest effort. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

His Most Unhated Film

Jorge Ramos PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

The Pentagon has strict regulationsagainst discrimination, but extremismremains a problem. PAGE A22

White Supremacism in Military

As the transit system casts about fornew revenue streams, most fares andtolls will increase in April. PAGE A23

NEW YORK A23-24

Fares to Rise. Crisis Remains.

President Trump’s former law-yer told Congress on Wednesdaythat Mr. Trump remained deeplyinvolved in the arrangement topay hush money to a porno-graphic film actress, even while inthe White House, telling him just ayear ago to lie to a journalist aboutthe president’s involvement.

Testifying before the HouseOversight Committee, the lawyer,Michael D. Cohen, also for the firsttime publicly implicated the presi-dent’s eldest son, Donald Jr., andthe chief financial officer of hiscompany, Allen Weisselberg, inthe arrangement involving the ac-tress, Stormy Daniels. She hadbeen paid $130,000 before the 2016election to keep quiet about an al-leged affair with Mr. Trump, andMr. Cohen was reimbursed in 2017for fronting that money.

“He knew about everything,”Mr. Cohen said of Mr. Trump. “Ev-erything had to go through Mr.Trump and had to be approved byMr. Trump.”

While federal prosecutors inNew York had laid out a generalnarrative around the payments,including Mr. Trump’s involve-ment, Mr. Cohen explicitly placedMr. Trump at the center of theevents, producing checks he de-scribed as evidence of the role thepresident and his companyplayed.

Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty lastsummer to campaign financecrimes relating to payments madeto Ms. Daniels and a second wom-an, Karen McDougal, who alsosaid she had had an affair with Mr.Trump. He is scheduled to beginserving a three-year prison sen-tence in May for those and othercrimes, including lying to Con-gress during earlier testimony.

Republican members of thecommittee on Wednesday repeat-edly challenged Mr. Cohen’s re-marks as untrustworthy, and evenbefore Mr. Cohen was sworn in,the president posted on Twitterthat he was “lying in order to re-duce his prison time.” The Trumpcampaign also released a state-ment impugning Mr. Cohen’scredibility.

But in testimony punctuatedwith flashes of anger and regret,Mr. Cohen said he had seen the er-rors of his ways and was deter-mined to serve as a positive rolemodel to his children. Insisting hewas speaking the truth, he offeredthe first up-close description ofhow involved the president re-mained in concealing details of thepayments, even after winning the

Claim Puts Presidentat a Hush-MoneyScheme’s Center

By REBECCA R. RUIZ

Continued on Page A17

Late EditionToday, clouds, then sunshine, high40. Tonight, considerable amountsof clouds, low 29. Tomorrow, cloudsand limited sunshine, high 41.Weather map appears on Page B12.

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