Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, thinks President Trump should potentially be behind bars since his former lawyer is heading to prison over crimes he said Trump directed him to commit.
Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison for tax fraud and bank crimes, including violating campaign finance laws for paying two women during the 2016 election in exchange for their silence about alleged affairs with Trump.
“If the Justice Department takes the position that Michael Cohen should go to jail, that these allegations are so serious he should go to jail for these campaign fraud allegations, what is the argument against jail for the individual who coordinated and directed that scheme?” Schiff, a California Democrat, told “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday.
“The rich and powerful shouldn’t play by some other set of rules,” he said. “That argument applies with equal force to the president of the United States.”
[Michael Cohen: ‘Of course’ Trump knew he was breaking the law]
Cohen has alleged Trump directed him to make the payments. The president has denied any wrongdoing, but his explanations have been murky.
If any laws were broken, Trump has said, Cohen should take the blame because Cohen was Trump’s lawyer.
Schiff’s comments on Tuesday expanded on remarks earlier this month, in which he said he believes Trump could face time in prison once he leaves the White House.
“My takeaway is there’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him. That he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” he said Dec. 9.
