WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Michael Cohen after Donald Trump’s former “fixer” admitted in an ongoing civil fraud trial that he lied to Congress.
Cohen, the former president’s 77-year-old lawyer, is serving a three-year prison sentence for lying in 2017 to the Senate intelligence committee about a Moscow real estate project and other crimes — and Turner (R-Ohio) said his latest false confession since 2019 may require another prosecution.
Cohen testified at Trump’s fraud trial in New York on October 25 that “yes” he lied in February 2019 to a House panel – a crime punishable by up to five years in prison – when he said Trump did not ask him to improve his personal financial statements.
Under oath before the committee, Cohen said: “Did he ask me to increase the amount? Not that I remember, no” — before testifying in court last month that Trump had done just that.
“Mr. Cohen, were you honest before the Permanent Select Committee when you testified [in] February … 2019?” Trump lawyer Alina Habba asked Cohen in the civil fraud case.
“No,” said Cohen.
Michael Cohen served three years in prison for lying in 2017 to the Senate Intelligence Committee.AP
“So you lied under oath in February 2019? Is that your testimony?” Habba pressed.
“Yes,” Cohen replied.
“Mr. Cohen’s testimony at the New York hearing was inconsistent with his testimony before the Committee,” Turner wrote in a letter to Garland that was co-signed by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
“That Mr. Cohen is willing to publicly and boldly state at trial that he lied to Congress on this particular issue is shocking.”
“Mr. Cohen’s testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on February 28, 2019, contradicts his recently reported testimony on October 25, 2023. Mr. Cohen’s prior conviction for lying to Congress warrants a high suspicion that he will again give false testimony before Congress,” wrote Turner and Stefanik.
“Therefore, we request that the Department investigate whether any of Mr. Cohen’s testimony warrants another charge for a violation of 18 USC §§ 1001 or 1621.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Cohen, now 57, told The Post that it wasn’t as simple as Turner and Stefanik suggested.
Turner said Cohen’s latest false confession since 2019 may require another prosecution.REUTERS
“I don’t care at all about their requests,” the disbarred lawyer said in a telephone interview. “They mischaracterized what happened.”
In a subsequent written statement, Cohen said he was “exactly” testifying to Congress in 2019 because Trump would typically make his wishes known in general, not specific.
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“Stefanik and Turner continue to do Donald’s bidding in witness tampering and obstruction of justice,” he wrote.
“Both members failed to understand the difference between the written and the implied; i.e. how the question is asked and answered accurately. The topic was further clarified a few questions later, which was conveniently and deliberately ignored.”
Intelligence committee transcripts from 2019 show Cohen testifying that Trump expressed interest in boosting the Forbes 400 rich list, which Cohen interpreted as a request to provide the magazine with inflated financial information.
At the hearing last month, Cohen said specifically: “I have been tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the amount of assets based on an amount that he arbitrarily chooses … and my responsibility, along with [then-Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg, especially, is for reverse engineering.
Cohen split with Trump in 2018 and pleaded guilty that year to lying to Congress as part of a broader set of charges including tax fraud. He served most of his prison term under house arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and the civil fraud trial is the first major courtroom episode of the campaign, which may also feature Trump’s four criminal trials on alleged crimes involving hush money, mishandling of classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
It is rare for civilians to be prosecuted for lying to Congress and some high-profile officials have managed to completely avoid charges of perjury.
They include former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who testified in 2013 that the feds “unwittingly” collected massive amounts of data on Americans — before whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the harvesting of phone and Internet data.
Clapper said at the time he had given the “most untrue” answer he could.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
