“The Democrats don’t care,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing for President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Jordan then zeroed in on the real reason behind the Democrats’ call for Cohen’s testimony: “They just want to use you. You are the patsy today. They want to find someone somewhere to say something so they can remove the president.” That would be impeachment. From there, the hearing descended into several heated exchanges between members of both parties with one another and with Cohen.

There were a few important points to note, however. First off, Cohen did nothing to negate Trump’s recent characterization of him as “proven liar” who was “lying to reduce his jail time.” In fact, it appears Cohen lied again during his testimony when he claimed that he did not want a job in the White House. That statement does not comport with what he had privately told friends and colleagues, captured in seized text messages — that he expected to get an important job within the administration.

As we noted yesterday, Cohen admitted he had no evidence to support the long-running Trump/Russia collusion narrative. But he did try his best to continue spinning the Democrats’ favorite conspiracy narrative, suggesting that Donald Trump Jr. may have alerted Trump to the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer. “Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world,” Cohen said, “and also Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone — and certainly not without checking with his father.” However, when he was pressed on whether Trump actually colluded, Cohen hedged, “I wouldn’t use the word ‘colluding.’”

Ironically, Cohen’s testimony actually exonerates Trump of the charge of Russian collusion and undercuts his own claim of campaign-finance violations. Cohen stated that Trump never really intended or expected to win the election; rather his aim was “only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.”

If, according to Cohen, Trump had no intention of winning but was simply running to build his own brand, then there would have been no reason to engage in collusion with Russia or to pay legally specious hush money to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. In other words, Cohen’s testimony on Trump’s motivations was contradictory.

In the end, little new information was gleaned from Cohen, and none of it appears to be legally damaging to Trump — even as much of the mainstream media seeks to spin it as such. That said, the factor that may be most damaging to Trump is having hired Cohen in the first place. What does it say about Trump’s decision-making when he hired and retained for over a decade a man of Cohen’s obviously poor character?