Republicans and Democrats will spend the next three days demanding answers from President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, on everything from the 2016 campaign, to Trump’s family business and his personal finances, to the lies he has admitted telling to Congress.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for bank and tax fraud, campaign finance violations, and not telling Congress the truth about early discussions in Trump’s company to invest in Russia. He’s due to report to prison on May 6.
But lawmakers will get a piece of him before he goes away. Here’s what they want to know:
Tuesday: Senate Intelligence Committee
Cohen can expect to be grilled behind closed doors by both parties in the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, since he admitted to lying to the committee in 2017 and abruptly pulled out of a hearing scheduled earlier this month. The session won’t be open to the public because it could cover classified information related to the ongoing Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said over the weekend that it’s important to interview Cohen again to ensure the integrity of the committee’s investigation, in which case the lying will be front and center.
“I think the reason you have him back is, when somebody lies to Congress in an investigation like this, the questions you might have asked the next witness don’t get asked. Somebody you might have called doesn’t get called,” Blunt said.
Cohen admitted he lied to the committee in order to downplay the importance of the Trump Tower project in Moscow while Trump was running for the White House in 2016.
Blunt said it’s “totally unacceptable” that Cohen lied, but also said that context means senators may not be sure whether anything Cohen says can be relied upon. “I don’t know that we believe him this time,” he told CBS.
Cohen will enter the hearing room without a lot of goodwill from committee members. Aside from lying to the committee, Cohen also decided he couldn’t make a previously scheduled hearing with the committee earlier this month.
“I can assure you that any goodwill that might have existed in the committee with Michael Cohen is now gone,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the committee, said after Cohen delayed his appearance.
Despite his frustrations with Cohen, Burr agreed with Blunt that it would be “prudent” that his committee speak with Cohen again before the committee wraps up its own investigation. He said Cohen “clearly rises to one of the people I’d go to every length I could to get his testimony.”
Wednesday: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
Cohen’s only public testimony, which will take place Wednesday in the House, will receive the biggest spotlight, and Democrats hope to use it to tell the story of why Cohen is now working with special counsel Robert Mueller as he investigates Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 election.
“Cohen can provide the committee and the American people with key testimony about why he went from one of the President’s staunchest defenders to one of his most vocal critics.” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the hearing will be “his chance to tell America in some comprehensive way what his involvement with Trump did to his life and what Trump is doing to our country.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the chairman of the Oversight Committee, said he coordinated with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, about Cohen’s testimony this week. House Intelligence will handle all Russia-related questions, while House Oversight will ask Cohen about Trump-related topics, including payments made in 2016, compliance with financial disclosure, campaign finance and tax laws, Trump’s conflicts of interest, business being done by the Trump Hotel in Washington that might be because of Trump’s position in the government, and possible questionable practices of the Trump Foundation and the Trump Organization.
BREAKING NEWS: Chairman @RepCummings announces the rescheduling of Michael Cohen’s public testimony for next week, despite efforts by some to intimidate his family members and prevent him from appearing before the Committee. https://t.co/hiMpPwrG2G
— Oversight Committee (@OversightDems) February 21, 2019
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., sent a letter to Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis, telling him that they don’t feel bound by the limited scope of questioning that the Democratic chairman laid out. They said Republicans plan to ask Cohen about his lies to Congress, his questionable business dealings, his foreign work, possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and even the fake Women for Cohen social media account he created for himself.
But Republicans have also warned they won’t be using the hearing to help Democrats “remove the President from office.” Republicans on the committee released a statement last week that said the hearing is a “charade” and is aimed at letting Cohen “avenge his grudge with the president.”
?#BREAKING: Read Ranking Member @Jim_Jordan‘s statement on @RepCummings‘ Upcoming Hearing with Michael Cohen.https://t.co/BJsxgqP3U6 pic.twitter.com/GprdrWCDWV
— Oversight Committee Republicans (@GOPoversight) February 21, 2019
Thursday: House Intelligence Committee
This closed-door hearing will let lawmakers focus on Russia-related matters, including any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said that the committee would also ask Cohen about the lies he told the last time he appeared and would try to determine whether Cohen “feared retribution for his testimony.”
Schiff, who is chairman of the committee, said that he “hopes to learn a great deal” from Cohen. He claimed that “Michael Cohen is pivotal to” getting answers about Trump’s personal finances, which he called a “red line” he was willing to cross. He said he’d also ask “what other light can he shed now that he’s cooperating on issues of obstruction of justice or collusion?”
Rep. Adam Schiff says Michael Cohen “has a lot to offer” and lawmakers hope to learn a “great deal” from Cohen when he testifies before Congress this week, including “why the false statements before our committee when he first appeared” https://t.co/bxt79ezGnL #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/mrDVBuuVg6
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) February 24, 2019
Schiff made it clear he would question Cohen about the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 and why he lied to Congress about the timing of the Trump Tower Moscow deal, alleging Trump had been “privately through his organization seeking the Kremlin’s help to make what may have been the most lucrative deal of his life” during a presidential election. He claimed that pressing Cohen on these issues was critical because, regardless of whether the Trump Tower Moscow deal was “criminal or not,” he believed it was “deeply compromising to our national security.”