House Democrats are chasing down several new leads generated by Wednesday’s public hearing with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and that could prompt them to seek testimony from new witnesses as they continue their effort to investigate President Trump’s finances and the hush-money payments Cohen orchestrated.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., made it clear after the hearing that Democrats were still trying to sift through what they heard from Cohen, who will begin a prison sentence in May.
“The question becomes where we go from here?” Cummings said after the hearing. “Well, we’re going to study our testimony and figure out what we’ve got there.”
But Cummings made it clear there will be next steps. “This is not the end of the process, but the beginning,” Cummings said.
Democrats so far have signaled they are looking at at least five different ways to follow up.
Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg
One line of inquiry the House Oversight Committee and others may chase is the role Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg played in the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her keeping quiet about her alleged tryst with the president more than a decade ago. Weisselberg, who was granted immunity by federal prosecutors probing Cohen, signed checks with Trump Jr. to the former fixer reimbursing him for buying Daniels’ silence, Cohen said Wednesday.
Cummings told reporters his committee “probably will” haul the pair before the panel to discuss the arrangement.
The check signed by President Trump
Cohen on Wednesday gave Congress a copy of a check related signed by President Trump in 2017, after his inauguration, and made out to Daniels.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told CNN that Cohen’s evidence pointed to wrongdoing that occurred since Trump moved to the White House.
“If Mr. Cohen’s allegations are correct, it means the president, while in office, literally while in the Oval Office was engaged in criminal activity, and that is furthering this campaign-fraud scheme,” Schiff said.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who sits on the House Oversight Committee, also told the network Cohen’s accusation could “not be ignored” but said he would wait to decide whether it triggered impeachment proceedings.
“I believe it’s at least one crime, and that is a violation of a federal election law because he was clearly circumventing the law, which is why he was hiding both the nature of the payment under a false retainer arrangement with Mr. Cohen that did not exist and tried to hide the payments themselves by lying about it,” Connolly said.
White House influence on Cohen’s testimony
Cohen told the committee that the president’s attorneys edited the inaccurate statement he gave to Congress in 2017 about negotiations over a Trump Tower in Moscow, which eventually led to his criminal prosecution by Mueller for being untruthful to lawmakers. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow denied Wednesday that he told Cohen to lie about how long Trump was considering the project.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment on his panel’s plans, but Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., told reporters “it is possible” his or another congressional committee may call the members of Trump’s legal counsel before them on this issue.
“I think we would need to find out, one, did the White House lawyers know the statement he was about to make was false? And second, did they play a part in any of those false statements?” Lieu said.
Trump family’s knowledge of the Trump Tower Moscow deal
Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were kept apprised of Cohen’s progress with the real estate project in the Russian capital, which continued until November 2016, Cohen said Wednesday. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told reporters the Trump family was not off-limits to House Democrats’ inquiries.
“I think given the answer to my question on whether or not Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner, and any other family members, were potentially compromised leading up to the election and during the campaign particularly because they were, according to Mr. Cohen and many others, fully involved in the Trump Tower deal and then there were lies told about that throughout the campaign.
Wasserman Schultz said Cohen’s answer shows that members of Trump’s family were “potentially compromised” and said she supports hearing their testimony. “Yes, this committee needs to bring them in and ask them questions about that,” Wasserman Schultz said.
When asked whether that would spark a war with the president, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., told CNN the war had already begun.
“We want witnesses. They were in those meetings, so we’re looking for people who can also corroborate Mr. Cohen’s testimony or dispute it,” he said.
Trump’s business dealings and financial documents
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who sits on the House Oversight and Intelligence committees, told reporters she did not learn “enough” about Trump’s business dealings through her questions to Cohen.
“What the public should be concerned about is how are they being kept safe in terms of national security when the president of the United States will not release his tax returns, will not tell the American people where he has financial interests, and that he may in fact be attempting to do business with adversaries of the United States for his personal gain,” Speier said.
Cohen’s public testimony came after a closed-door session with the Senate Intelligence Committee. He will also appear before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday for a private interview. Schiff has said the conversation will focus on plans to build the Trump Tower in Moscow, connections between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks, and the White House’s role in Cohen’s false statements to Congress.
Cohen is expected to report to federal prison on May 6, where he will serve three years for tax and bank fraud, as well as campaign finance violations. He will serve another two months concurrently with the first sentence for “knowingly and willfully” making “a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement and representation” to lawmakers about the Trump Tower deal.
[Also read: Could Michael Cohen be prosecuted for committing perjury again?]
