House Democrats to host Trump’s disgraced lawyer in public hearing
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s disgraced former attorney, will give a “full and credible account” of his work with the president to the House Oversight Committee next month, as he continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
Cohen announced on Thursday that he will testify before the committee on February 7, in hearings that will be broadcast to the public. The appearance is the brainchild of committee chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who has reassured special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that his questions will not interfere with the “Russiagate” probe, recently granted an extension beyond the 18 months typically allotted grand juries.
“He’ll have a chance to tell his side of the story, and we’ll have a chance to question him,” Cummings said. “The American people deserve that.”
Asked whether he was concerned about Cohen airing his dirty laundry on national television, the president said, “I’m not worried about it at all.”
Cummings believes otherwise – in a December interview, he compared Cohen to Nixon White House counsel John Dean, who “changed the course of America” when he implicated himself and administration officials during a Senate hearing, breaking open the Watergate case.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison last month for lying to Congress, campaign finance violations, and tax and bank fraud. He has been cooperating with the Mueller investigation and federal prosecutors in New York since pleading guilty to the first of the charges in August, and has continued cooperating since the sentencing in an effort to further reduce his sentence.
This Michael Cohen news is HUGE and no one should be modest about it. I hope to see “LOCK HIM UP” everywhere with the same energy they had for Hillary Clinton. https://t.co/djApsPL9pQ
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) January 10, 2019
Trump has dismissed Cohen as a “weak person” lying to investigators to save himself and his family. Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, has spent over 70 hours in meetings with prosecutors since he began cooperating.
The same media that suggested having Peter Strzok testify was doing the bidding of Putin will hail the Michael Cohen hearing as vital to our democracy
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 10, 2019
Cummings isn’t the only Senate committee chair itching to get his hands on the Trump turncoat. Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-California) has been in communication with Cohen’s lawyer about a possible hearing, and Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-New York) is also in play.
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