Democrats didn't get what they wanted out of Michael Cohen. Neither did Republicans.

Probably nothing is ever going to convince me that Michael Cohen is anything other than what we know he is: a cheap crook who will do or say anything to earn a dollar or get out of a scrape.

That doesn't mean nothing he says is believable. But his new gig as a full-time penitent and would-be Resistance folk hero does not suit him very well. Which is why I think neither of our major parties really got what they wanted out of Wednesday's seven-and-a-half-hour hearing. Apart from his claim that Donald Trump made racist comments in his presence — using language that was remarkably similar to the president's previously reported comments about El Salvador — Cohen said almost nothing that changes what we know about the Mueller investigation or anything else.

It's practically undeniable that Trump broke federal campaign law in 2016 when he allegedly authorized the $130,000 payment to his former mistress Stephanie Clifford; this is not exactly news. Learning that the money moved from a home equity loan to some lawyer to the recipient like water making its way through the compartments of the Titanic is interesting for historians, I suppose, as is the insight into how he was eventually reimbursed. I wrote a year ago that l'affaire Daniels, because it is so unambiguous, would prove far more consequential than the lunatic far-flung speculations of Russiagate enthusiasts. This is almost certainly going to be the case. The president of the United States cannot be charged with a federal crime any more than Charles I could, but he could be impeached. The clear-cut violation of a precisely worded statute is the Democrats' best bet.

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Otherwise, though, I think it would be fair to say Cohen gave the Democrats nothing. He very pointedly refused to cooperate with more than one lunatic line of questioning about Trump's hypothetical willingness to "collude" with unknown "powers," presumably including infernal ones, or to indulge the existence of conspiracy theories about the president beating his wife. He did not seem even 1 percent as concerned about some of his own minor misdeeds, such as rigging an online poll with the help of some hack at Liberty University. The only embarrassing thing about that story is the fact that he was paid to do what anonymous teenagers have been up to since the mid 2000s.

But I'm also not sure what the Republicans think they are going to accomplish by emphasizing what a scumbag Cohen is. All the crimes of which he has been convicted — tax evasion, lying — are the same ones they insist, rightly, are meaningless as far as the liberal Russia narrative is concerned. Either Paul Manafort's crimes were discovered thanks to a pointless over-reaching investigation or he was a bad man rightly brought to justice by the noble Robert Mueller. Either way, the unavoidable conclusion is that the president has spent his life surrounded by two-bit thugs and tough-talking imbeciles.

Instead, members of both parties ranted about more or less whatever they wanted. Stephen Lynch proposed his not exactly novel theory that Trump has been working with the Ruskies since 1987. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez informed the country that sporting facilities of various kinds are — get this — frequently built with public funds. Elijah Cummings screaming for goodness knows how long (I turned the sound off eventually) was a fit ending. The whole thing was arguably illegal. But as Mark Meadows shouted about 30 seconds into the hearing: "Do the rules matter?"

Have I got any other impressions of these important proceedings? Oh my, yes. I have no idea why Rep. Chip Higgins, the Louisiana Republican, decided to remove his jacket, but with his baggy waistcoat and scraggly beard he looked like a degenerate saloon keeper. He sounded like one too when he rambled about Cohen being in a "trap." Finally: Matthew Calamari? Come on.

While these and other august matters of state were discussed on Capitol Hill two nuclear powers in South Asia went to the brink of war and the president met with the dictator of another in a country we fought our second longest war with.