When Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified last February before the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the panel’s chairman, closed the hearing with a seemingly extemporaneous eight-minute speech. Expanding on his own earlier statement that, “we’re better than this,” in reference to the president’s impact on the country, Cummings remarks were strikingly empathetic to Cohen, openly emotional, and morally urgent.