Lies and Lying Liars: President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen yesterday produced evidence that the President’s other lawyers doctored Cohen’s false testimony to Congress in 2017.

  Following Cohen’s open testimony last week, the White House claimed Cohen was lying when he said President Trump’s lawyers had vetted what became criminal perjury. Cohen yesterday gave the House Intelligence Committee several drafts of his 2017 testimony and emails with Trump’s lawyers about the contents. The lawyers included Jay Sekulow, who said he had nothing to do with it. 

  Cohen, who is going to prison for his lies to Congress in 2017, said last week that there were “changes made, additions” to his original statement, including about the duration of negotiations involving a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump claimed during the campaign that he had no business with Russia. A lie. 

  Cohen testified last week that, “There were several changes that were made including how we were going to handle that message, which was — the message of course being the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive.”

  What’s not publicly known is whether Cohen originally planned to tell the truth, and Trump’s lawyers inserted the lies, or whether they all cooperated in the lies. Either way, it’s serious for Trump and his legal team.

The Kitchen is Closed:Responding to accusations of sexual harassment and abuse in his businesses, celebrity chef Mario Batali is giving up his interest on 16 co-owned restaurants and selling his shares in Eataly, the fast-growing chain of luxury Italian supermarkets .

  Batali has been partners with the Bastianich family of restaurateurs. Together they had dozens of restaurants around the world, but many of them closed after the accusations against Batali went public.

  Also on that beat, in the midst of a hearing on sexual assault in the military, Arizona Sen. Martha McSally announced that she was repeatedly raped during her time in the Air Force, once by a superior officer.

  “I thought I was strong, but felt powerless,” McSally said. “The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound ways.”

The News Roundup:“Jeopardy!” game show host Alex Trebek, 78, said he has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer but intends to fight and keep working. Most of the time pancreatic is a quickly fatal. — Musician R. Kelly, who’s been accused of sex with underage girls, was taken back into custody yesterday until he comes up with $161,000 in unpaid child support. This happened the same day Kelly gave a tearful and emotional interview to CBS This Morningin which he claimed he’s innocent, loves his children, and is trying to be a father to them. He lives in a three-way relationship with two girlfriends. — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is scheduled for sentencing today for his conviction on financial crimes. He could get up to 24 years without designer clothes.

Fox in the White House:The Democratic National Committee announced that it  will not all allow Fox Newsto host or televise a candidate debate for the party’s 2020 primary. The committee’s chairman, Tom Perez, said in a statement that Fox “is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates.” 

  The network that once advertised itself as “Fair and Balanced” has become state television for the Republican Party and in particular the Trump White House. Trump has plucked several of his staffers, including the communications director, from Fox and rabid right-wing host Sean Hannity is one of Trump’s closest confidants. When Trump visited the Texas border, Hannity was with Trump and government officials rather than behind the rope line with the press.

  Jane Mayer writes in a long New Yorkerarticle about the merge of Fox and the White House that, “As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead.” 

Talk is Cheap: President Trump campaigned for office on promises to lower the national deficit and cut the trade imbalance with the rest of the world. After Trump has been in office just over two years, both are higher than they have ever been in history.

  The trade deficit hit $891.3 billion in 2018. We bought that much more stuff from other countries than they bought from us.

  The widening gap is fueled in part by the Republican tax cuts which left Americans, particularly the wealthy,  more money to buy foreign goods. And that’s what they did.

  Trump’s trade war with China has also slowed that country’s economy, resulting in the Chinese buying fewer American goods.

Short-Brimmed Fedora:Anangry man has written to  the MIT Technology Reviewdemanding that they stop using a picture of him for an online article claiming all hipsters look alike. 

  The article is called “The Hipster Effect: Why Anti-Conformists Always End Up Looking the Same.” MIT concluded that “the hipster effect” is a “counterintuitive phenomenon in which people who oppose mainstream culture all end up looking the same.”

  It turns out that the angry hipster who wrote the protest to MIT is not the man in the photo. They just look alike.