Michael Cohen has postponed his planned testimony before the House Oversight Committee, citing “ongoing threats” by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
The public testimony from the president’s former personal lawyer was planned for Feb. 7.
“Due to ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani, as recently as this weekend, as well as Mr. Cohen’s continued cooperation with ongoing investigations, by advice of counsel, Mr. Cohen’s appearance will be postponed to a later date,” an attorney for Cohen, Lanny Davis, said in a statement Wednesday.
Davis said Cohen looks forward to testifying at the “appropriate time.”
“This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first,” Davis said.
Davis did not elaborate on the “threats” his client has received from Trump and Giuliani.
The announcement comes a day after Republicans on House Oversight questioned how useful Cohen’s testimony would actually be, accusing the planned event of being nothing more than a “media stunt.”
GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina said Davis recently told congressional investigators that he “pushed” Cohen to testify before the committee next month.
“This was my idea; nobody else’s,” Davis said, according to Jordan and Meadows, who wrote to Cohen’s other attorney, Guy Petrillo, in a letter sent Tuesday.
Late last year, Cohen pleaded guilty in two federal investigation, one brought against him by the Southern District of New York and another brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller. In December, he was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a handful of crimes, including bank fraud, illegal campaign contributions, and lying to Congress. In the process, Cohen all but implicated the president.
Cohen is set to report to federal prison March 6.
Davis had told GOP staff that Cohen’s testimony should “exclude any matter ‘under investigation.’” According to Davis, Jordan and Meadows wrote, the “sole purpose” of the appearance is to give “anecdotes about his time with the President.”
Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., told reporters it is the “overwhelming consensus” among committee members that Cohen should be subpoenaed, and Cummings said the committee will release a “major statement” later Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he is aware of damaging information about Cohen’s family — but provided no evidence.
In response, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., condemned the remarks, saying it was “unacceptable” for the president “to try to bully or intimidate our witnesses, to try to get them not to testify, to try to scare or threaten their family members, or to try to interfere with Congress’ search for the truth.”
On Friday, Trump accused Cohen of “lying to reduce his jail time” in the wake of a bombshell report from BuzzFeed News that said the president directed Cohen to lie to Congress. Trump did not directly address the report in his tweet, but said people should watch Cohen’s father-in-law.
In a Fox News interview last month, Trump also pointed to Cohen’s wife, saying Michael Cohen might have reached an agreement “to keep his wife out of trouble.”
Giuliani, who represents the president in the Russia investigation, said Sunday that Trump is “defending” himself by pointing fingers at Cohen’s family, and is not trying to intimidate his former lawyer.
“Of course it is if the father-in-law is a criminal in the Southern District of New York,” Giuliani said. “He may have ties to something called organized crime.”
Cohen’s father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, has given at least $20 million in loans to Yasya Shtayner, according to the Chicago Sun-Times show. Her family owns Chicago Medallion Management Corp., which manages 368 taxicabs, including 22 owned by Cohen.
Shusterman and the Shtayners immigrated from Ukraine to New York City in the 1970s. In 1993, Shusterman pleaded guilty to federal income-tax fraud relating to his taxicab business in New York. He paid a $5,000 fine and served two years of probation.
