With Michael Cohen testifying in front of the House oversight and reform committee, congressional Republicans were gifted another opportunity to sink lower in the moral abyss due of their self-immolating fealty to Donald Trump.

Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including campaign finance violations and lying to Congress, testified under oath to reveal details about his relationship with Trump, whom he has described as a “conman”, “cheat”, “racist” and “liar”.

On Tuesday night, Cohen dropped a blistering 20-page opening statement painting a damning portrait of Trump as a morally corrupt, vain and insecure criminal with a history of using fraud and intimidation to slither out of trouble. Cohen alleges Trump lied about his efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow and insinuated Cohen should do the same. Cohen also named Trump as “Individual 1” who directed him to engage in illegal campaign finance violations and lie about paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal with hush money. That revelation, which would single-handedly derail any normal presidency, didn’t come until page 13 of the statement, just to underscore the breadth of allegations.

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Cohen has receipts, plural, to back up his claims, including a $35,000 check paid to Cohen by Trump to reimburse him for paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged adulterous affair involving Shark Week and a Forbes magazine.

Wednesday’s testimony also brought a whopping revelation that the southern district of New York is still investigating potential crimes committed by Donald Trump which haven’t been made public. Also, Cohen alleges Donald Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow changed his testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow deal, which if true, puts Mr Sekulow in tremendous legal jeopardy. And we still haven’t even discussed the Fredo of the family, Donald Trump Jr, and his alleged criminal activity.

In fact, the entire spectacle has the patina of a mob movie. Trump has referred to Cohen as a “rat” for testifying against him, violating the “omertà” code of loyalty. Republican Matt Gaetz did his worst Luca Brasi impression on Twitter by publicly threatening and blackmailing Cohen. Gaetz claims he wasn’t witness tampering but “witness testing”, proving that if this was indeed Goodfellas he’d be the incompetent criminal clipped by his own boss by the third act.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cohen testifies before the House oversight committee on 27 February 2019 in Washington DC. Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images

Cohen for his part was Trump’s consigliere, his wartime counselor and fixer, having worked intimately with the president for over a decade. Here he is, in front of the world, willing to give details and receipts about Trump’s alleged criminal activities. He is already convicted, sentenced and testifying under oath. It’s a perfect time for elected officials, both Republican and Democrat, who care about the security of the country and its institutions to use the opportunity to get the truth.

Sadly, Republicans decided to run interference for Trump and commit to dying on a decrepit orange hill. Not a single one asked about any of the damning allegations made by Cohen about Trump and his criminal activity. Instead, with lateral thinking, they believe attacking Cohen as a pathological liar and criminal will damage his credibility as a witness and somehow shield Trump. For the majority of Americans, this seems like self-defeating strategy because Cohen admits he committed these crimes for Trump and under his direction. “You’re a pathological liar! You don’t know truth from falsehood,” bellowed Republican congressman Paul Gosar, whose own family took out an ad urging people to vote against him.

“Sir, I’m sorry, are you referring to me or the president?” responded Cohen, throwing epic shade that should cover the Republicans in a blanket of shame – that is if they had any left.

The faux moral outrage by Republicans over Cohen’s lies is comical in its shameful hypocrisy. They have defended a president who has made more than 7,000 false or misleading statements in his first two years of office. These Republicans apparently hate lying so much that they have no problem supporting the appointment of convicted criminal Elliott Abrams, the new special envoy to Venezuela, who lied to Congress about the Iran-contra affair.

Analyst Matthew Miller tweeted it best when he wrote, “If the Republicans’ chief objection today is that Michael Cohen is a convicted liar, I’m sure they won’t object to subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr, Alan Weisselberg, and Roger Stone to tell their side of this story?”

If you hold your breath for them issuing these subpoenas, you’ll be dead. In fact, when Republicans where in charge of the House, congressmen like Devin Nunes, who chaired the House intelligence committee, went above and beyond the call of duty to protect Trump.

If Republicans were so concerned with the truth, they’d probably also spend time investigating credible accusations of sexual assault against the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, but the hunt for truth is only triggered by the words “Benghazi”, “Clinton’s emails” and “birth certificate”.

In fact, just before recess, the Republican congresswoman Carol Miller complained about Congress wasting time and taxpayer money on this hearing. At 28 months, Republicans spent more time investigating the Benghazi attack than they did the 9/11 terror attacks, Watergate and the JFK assassination all to undermine then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Mueller’s investigation, in comparison, is a model of efficiency and effectiveness, netting more than 30 indictments and multiple convictions, including Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort.

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Lackeys like congressmen Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows remain on the House oversight and reform committee. Unfortunately for the American people, oversight and reform to them means obstruction and interference.

Finally, it bears mentioning that Cohen has said Trump is a racist in private. He’s not racially tinged or racially charged or suffering from racial flare-ups or racial trip-ups, but consistently racist. During the waning days of Black History Month, marred by blackface controversies, Meadows could have used this moment for conciliation or to call out Trump on his egregious racism. Instead, he trotted out Lynn Patton, a Trump administration official, as a token black person because, of course, racist people don’t work with or employ people of color.

Cohen, however, had the last laugh, launching this zinger: “Ask Ms Patton how many people who are black are executives at the Trump Organization. And the answer is zero.”

In fact, his question inspires me to ask the following: how many Republicans in Congress are willing to put their country and national security above Trump, judging from their shameful performance at Cohen’s hearing?

The answer is zero.