"The more people that follow Mr Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering," says Cohen.

"I lost it all. If I'm not a picture perfect example of what not to do, that the example that I'm trying to set for my children.

"We make mistakes in life. and I 'm taking responsibility for them. I own them."

"When Trump turned around early in the campaign and said 'I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue'", Cohen said, "he actually meant it".

Image source, CBS

Cohen has a testy exchange with Republican Representative Paul Gosar.

Gosar calls him a "pathological liar".

"You don't know truth from falsehood," Gosar says.

Cohen replies: "Are you referring to me or the president?"

"When I ask you a question I'll ask for an answer," the representative snaps.

"You didn't do this for Donald Trump. You did this for you."

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have repeatedly hit on what could be the most legally damaging part of Cohen’s testimony on Wednesday.

Trump’s former lawyer has presented new, documentary evidence of payments made to him by Mr Trump – including a cheque with the president’s signature. He says this money was a reimbursement for his 2016 election eve hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. The adult film star was poised to claim that she and Trump had sexual relations in the 2006.

US government prosecutors in New York have said that Mr Cohen’s payment to Daniels constituted an undisclosed campaign contribution in violation of federal election law – a charge to which Cohen has pleaded guilty.

If Cohen can help draw a connection between the Daniels payment to the president himself, it could implicate Trump in a crime.

The president’s legal team has responded to similar allegations in the past by arguing that the payments to Cohen were part of a retainer fee and that Mr Trump had no knowledge of Cohen’s illegal activities and was relying on his lawyer to know and abide by campaign finance law.

The more evidence Cohen presents to back up his claim that Trump was fully aware of the hush-money payments, the more difficult it becomes for him to maintain this position.

Takeaways from testimony of Trump's ex-lawyer

Jim Jordan again berates Cohen as a liar and brings up Lanny Davis once more.

He confirms Davis is not currently being paid by Cohen.

Cohen says he'll pay him when he starts to earn a living again.

"Wow, I've never known a lawyer to wait three years to get paid!" Jordan exclaims.

2015: Cohen starts working on the Trump Tower Moscow project. Trump announces his bid for president.

2016: Cohen reaches out to a Kremlin spokesman about Trump Tower. In July, Trump wins the Republican nomination and insists he has no business deals in Russia. In August, Cohen makes a deal with a US tabloid company to prevent former playboy model Karen McDougal from divulging details about an alleged 2007 affair with Trump. Trump wins the election on 6 November.

2017: Cohen testifies to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees that the Trump Tower project ended in January, long before Trump's first primary election.

2018: News of Cohen's hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels breaks. Cohen claims he paid Daniels with his own money, Trump denies knowing anything about it. The FBI raids Cohen's apartment in New York. By July, Cohen is willing to co-operate with Robert Mueller's Russia inquiry and Trump turns on his former confidante. Trump later admits he paid Daniels. In November, Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress. He's sentenced to three years in December.

2019: Cohen testifies before Congress. He will begin his prison term in May.

Image source, Getty Images

Democrats are now asking about the timeline of the Trump Tower Moscow project, which Cohen has admitted to lying about.

"Our goal was to get this project. We were interested in building what would have been the largest building in all of Europe," Cohen says.

He says his lies to Congress on the subject were "in furtherance of my protection for Mr Trump... and I am not protecting Mr Trump anymore."

Republicans are attacking Lanny Davis, Cohen's attorney, saying he's intentionally pushing Cohen to testify against the president.

They've pointed out Davis has been a Democratic strategist and has close connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"You lied. You are a liar by definition," says Republican from Georgia Jody Hice as he begins his five minutes of questioning.

"Did you or anyone else co-operate with the Democratic party?" asks the congressman.

"We've spoken to the party," says Cohen.

He says he spoke with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff "and his people" but only consulted with his lawyers to prepare for the hearing today.

His lawyer, Lanny Davis - who Republicans have attacked as a "Clinton operative" - is working for free, Cohen says.

"I was asked to come here. And I am here voluntarily. It was my decision."

After reiterating everyone's here for just one reason - "the American people are tired of being lied to" - and criticising Trump's "congressional enablers", Chairman Cummings asks Cohen about the president's financial assets.

"To your knowledge did the president or his company ever inflate assets or revenues?"

Yes, Cohen answers, adding: "Everything was done with the knowledge and at the direction of Mr Trump."

Cohen also details how Trump wanted to increase the values of his assets in calculations, and once asked Cohen to make sure Trump's net worth would continue to increase each year on Forbes' wealthiest individuals list.

"Inflating assets to boost your ego is not a crime," Cummings says. "But to your knowledge did the president ever provide inflated assets to a bank in order to help him obtain a loan?"

Cohen alleges they submitted inaccurate statements to Deutsche Bank "in an attempt to obtain money so we could put a bid on the Buffalo Bills".

Congressman Mark Meadows introduces a black woman named Lynn Patton.

"I'm responsible for Ms Patton joining the Trump administration and the current job that she holds," says Cohen.

Patton claims "there is no way she would work for an individual who is racist", says Meadows.

Cohen responds that he is the son of a Holocaust survivor.

"Ask Ms Patton how many people who are black are executives at the Trump Organization. The answer is zero," says Cohen.

According to US media, Patton is a senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration.

Democrat Eleanor Norton of Washington DC asks Cohen if Trump was "concerned about the impact" of the Access Hollywood tape - which involved him making obscene comments about women - before the election.

Read the transcript of that tape here.

Cohen says he got a phone call from public relations consultant Hope Hicks about the tape, asking him to start making calls to news outlets to "spin" the video, to "claim this was 'men's locker room talk'".

He described the effect of the Billy Bush tape as a "wildfire".

"Then couple that with Karen McDougal, which then came out around the same time. And then on top of that the Stormy Daniels matter," Cohen notes, answering if the Trump campaign was worried about the effect it would have on the election.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Most of the early attention paid to Michael Cohen’s testimony involved his connections to the assortment of controversies that have swirled around Trump since he became president.

It’s one thing to read the advance text of a committee statement, however, and it’s another to see it in the flesh. If there were any doubts about how effective Cohen would be as a witness, he quickly put them to rest.

Cohen – in a dark suit, with his voice occasionally wavering – testified about what it was like to work with Trump for more than a decade. What he learned, he said, made him ashamed.

He called his former boss a racist, a cheat and a conman. He says he had both good and bad attributes, but that bad outweighed the good.

"Since taking office," Cohen said, "he has become the worst version of himself."

Republicans were quick to pounce. Mark Meadows asked why, if Cohen was so ashamed, he stuck with Trump for 10 full years. Wasn’t it a possibility, he suggested, that Cohen was bitter that he didn’t get a White House job and was taking it out on his former boss?

"I got exactly what I wanted," Cohen replied, noting that he preferred to spend his time in New York, with his teenage children.

That may have been the case two years ago, but there’s little chance Cohen wanted – or imagined – the situation he finds himself in now.

Read more live analysis from Anthony Zurcher here:

Takeaways from testimony of Trump's ex-lawyer

Image source, Reuters

'Shame on you Mr Jordan. That is not what I said," Cohen says, insisting that Republican co-chair Jim Jordan has mischaracterised his remarks.

"I take responsibility for my mistakes. I am remorseful. I am going to prison. I will be away from my family for years."

"I never purchased a summer home," Cohen says to Kentucky Republican James Comer.

Comer asks about the financial crimes that Cohen admitted, relating to his taxi medallions and home loans.

"No individual and no bank have ever lost a dollar with me. I owe no money to my bank," he insists.

"I pled guilty. I am going to prison," he says.

"Because you're a con?" asks Comer.

"No sir. Because I pled guilty I am going to be doing my time."

"You called Mr Trump a cheat. What would you call yourself?" asks the congressman.

"A fool," says Cohen, without hesitation.

The response appeared to stun Comer for a moment, who said he had "no comment on that".

Cohen says lawmakers should also reach out to:

• David Pecker, CEO of the tabloid-owning media group AMI involved with hush money payments
• Dylan Howard, vice-president of AMI
• Barry Levine of AMI, the tabloid-owning media group involved with the hush payments]
• Allen Weisselberg, chief finance officer of the Trump Organization
• Alan Gartan, exective vice-president of the Trump Organization

The president's son Eric Trump offered a different account of Cohen's claims about declining a White House job.