Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr confirmed Friday his panel has made referrals to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The confirmation, made at a University of Texas forum, comes a day after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress as part of Mueller’s investigation.
“I don’t want you to get us mixed up with Bob Mueller’s special prosecutor investigation. We have no criminal responsibilities. If we identify a crime in our investigation that has been committed, we refer it to the special prosecutor,” Burr said. “I won’t tell you the number of times, but we have made referrals to the special prosecutor.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee has interviewed more than 200 witnesses — including Cohen — as part of its investigation into Russian election interference and possible connections to the Trump campaign. Burr mentioned Cohen as one of those referrals.
“One of them, one instance just highlighted of late was the special prosecutor made the indictment yesterday using the transcripts of interviews we have done in our committee to indict somebody for lying to Congress,” Burr said.
The North Carolina Republican said that Cohen’s guilty plea should be seen as a clear warning.
“It’s a loud message to everybody that is interviewed by our committee, regardless of where that prosecution comes from: If you lie to us, we’re going to go after you. Our mandate is at the end of this to get as close to the clear truth as we possibly can, and we can’t do it on conjecture. We’ve got to do it on facts.”
In his plea deal, Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, admitted that he lied about negotiations he had about building a Trump Tower in Moscow. Those discussions about the real estate project occurred well into the 2016 presidential campaign, while Cohen represented Trump in business dealings.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that the committee had made multiple criminal referrals to Mueller, but added “we’re not going to talk about any individuals.”
Some of the key people interviewed by the committee include Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr.
