Democrats on Friday jumped on a new report from BuzzFeed News that said President Trump directed his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a possible Russia real estate deal and said that could be grounds for impeachment.
“If the facts are true, this is suborning perjury. It’s an impeachable offense,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., in an interview with CNN Friday. “This is a completely impeachable offense, if this report is true.”
He added that Congress would need to hear from “everybody who was involved” before moving forward with impeachment plans.
Raskin is part of the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman said the panel would “get to the bottom” of the allegations laid out in the BuzzFeed News report from Thursday night.
“We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction,” Nadler said in a tweet Friday. “Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committee’s job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that his committee would also do “what’s necessary to find out if it’s true” that Trump had directed Cohen to lie.
“These allegations may prove unfounded, but, if true, they would constitute both the subornation of perjury as well as obstruction of justice,” Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement early Friday. “Our committee is already working to secure additional witness testimony and documents related to the Trump Tower Moscow deal and other investigative matters.”
“I think it would rise to a high crime or misdemeanor, and I think that for a lot of people, that would be grounds for impeachment,” added Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., on Friday.
Krishnamoorthi is on both the House Oversight and Intelligence committees and told CNN that getting to impeachment “requires a lot of investigation.”
“There has to be corroboration for what has been alleged, but it’s a very serious allegation nonetheless,” he said.
Cohen has pleaded guilty to nine felonies.
In New York, federal prosecutors charged him with eight felonies stemming from hush-money payments he made two women at the direction of the president, and special counsel Robert Mueller charged him with lying to Congress about negotiations about the Moscow project. He was sentenced to three years in December.
Cohen is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7, and he is then due to turn himself in to federal prison roughly a month later.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee indicated he will be back on Capitol Hill before going behind bars.
“We have invited Michael Cohen back,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told reporters Friday. “We are in conversations with him. We expect him to come back in early February.”
“If the story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted late Thursday about the Buzzfeed report.
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., suggested that Trump committed “obstruction of justice” and urged on Twitter that the House Judiciary Committee to “start holding hearings to establish record of whether [the president] committed high crimes.”
Section 4 of Article Two of the U.S. Constitution states, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The revelation also had some calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to reveal if he has any information about Trump directing Cohen to lie.
“Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn’t end his inquiry, but it’s about time for him to show Congress his cards before it’s too late for us to act,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in a tweet.
Sen. Jeff Merkely, D-Ore., said if the report is confirmed, “then Trump committed a felony and must resign or be impeached.”
In a near-identical tweet, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said, “If true, which it appears to be, the @BuzzFeedNews report that Trump suborned perjury is an impeachable offense, and the House should begin the process.”
This week, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, has said it would be seen as obstruction of justice if the president tried to coach someone to lie to Congress.
“If a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity of availability of evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction,” Barr further explained in a 19-page memo about the special counsel’s investigation in 2018. “Indeed, the acts of obstruction alleged against Presidents Nixon and Clinton in their respective impeachments were all such ‘bad acts’ involving the impairment of evidence.”
Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal told CNN late Thursday that “if these facts are corroborated,” he didn’t “see how Congress can do anything else but commence an investigation into impeachment.”
In a statement Friday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that “any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false.”
