When Will Cohen Testify Before Congress Again
On Wednesday, February 27, Michael Cohen — President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer and fixer — is scheduled to publicly testify before the Business firm Oversight Committee. The hearing begins at 10 am ET and tin be watched live online on the commission's website.
The hearing promises to exist explosive. While questions specifically near Russia will be off the table due to special counsel Robert Mueller's continuing investigation, Cohen will exist questioned about Trump'due south business practices and hush money payments to women who alleged affairs with Trump during the 2016 campaign.
Cohen spent about a decade as Trump's lawyer and as a Trump Organization executive. But last year, he savage under FBI investigation and had a bitter falling-out with the president. Somewhen, he pleaded guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations regarding the hush coin payments, and lying to Congress about his efforts to strike a Russian business deal for Trump. He'south set to begin a three-yr prison sentence for those crimes on May half-dozen.
Cohen was originally scheduled to prove to the Oversight Commission earlier this calendar month, but he refused to appear, citing "threats against his family" from President Trump and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who have both made innuendos about potential criminality from Cohen's father-in-law.
According to a memo distributed last week by House Oversight Commission Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the scope of Cohen's public testimony will include many topics related to Trump's business (such as his debts, compliance with tax laws, and his Washington, DC, hotel) besides as "payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016 election."
And a source told the Wall Street Journal that Cohen will utilize the testimony to "publicly charge the president of criminal conduct while in office" in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush coin payment.
What Cohen might say about Trump'south hush payments to women
The aforementioned $130,000 "hush money payment to a porn star" — Daniels — wasn't the only hush payment Cohen orchestrated on Trump's behalf to a woman who claimed to accept had an affair with him. Cohen also bundled a "catch and kill" bargain between Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and American Media Inc. that resulted in McDougal receiving $150,000 in exchange for not speaking publicly during the campaign about the affair she says she had with Trump.
Both payments far exceeded the $two,700 maximum for an unreported contribution to a candidate in a full general ballot, and final August, Cohen pleaded guilty to "causing an unlawful corporate contribution" in connection with the AMI bargain and "excessive campaign contribution" in connection with Daniels.
Iv months before Cohen entered his plea, Trump claimed to take no knowledge of the payments to Daniels and referred questions about the matter to Cohen. Merely in court filings continued with the guilty plea, Cohen and prosectors affirmed that both of the payments were made at the direction of "Individual-1" — a.k.a. Trump.
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According to the New York Times, during his testimony before the Business firm Oversight Committee, Cohen will accuse Trump of committing crimes during his presidency in connectedness with the hush payments — and he says he has the receipts to dorsum information technology upwardly:
Mr. Cohen volition depict in what was chosen "granular detail" the plan to pay Ms. Daniels, which he will say was initiated by Mr. Trump, the person familiar with the testimony plans said. Mr. Cohen has pleaded guilty to a federal campaign finance-related charge in connexion with that payment. Prosecutors have implicated Mr. Trump, identifying him as "Individual 1," in connexion with that charge in documents filed in the example...
While the payment to Daniels was made during the presidential campaign, Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said Cohen was reimbursed for information technology during a menstruum of time extending into Trump'southward presidency through a $35,000-a-calendar month retainer agreement.
Cohen "is planning to bring documents that will illustrate his claims" about Trump's declared criminal conduct, co-ordinate to the Times.
What Cohen might say nearly the Trump Organization
Russia won't be a field of study of Midweek'southward hearing, merely according to the Times, Cohen — who worked for Trump for more than a decade — does plan to tell the Oversight Committee about exactly how deep into the presidential campaign Trump continued to discuss a possible Trump Tower Moscow real estate bargain.
During his closed-door 2017 testimony to Congress, Cohen said that discussions for Trump Tower Moscow concluded in January 2016. Merely Mueller's team ultimately adamant that those talks continued until at least June 2016, which resulted in Cohen pleading guilty to perjury. Giuliani has since suggested that the talks may have extended all the way until Nov 2016 — until the very end of a campaign in which Trump raised eyebrows by repeatedly praising Putin and pushing for a normalization of US-Russian federation relations.
Beyond Trump Tower Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reports that Cohen "as well volition make public some of Mr. Trump's private financial statements and allege that Mr. Trump at times inflated or deflated his cyberspace worth for business and personal purposes, including avoiding paying property taxes."
Cohen's statements could be corroborated past Trump's taxation returns, so Cohen's testimony will exist useful for Business firm Democrats seeking to develop a design nigh how best to become almost compelling Trump to turn them over.
Beyond Trump's shady financial dealings, Cohen also reportedly plans to testify well-nigh racist comments he heard Trump brand while he was working for him. In a November interview with Vanity Fair, Cohen recalled hearing Trump say things similar, "blackness people are besides stupid to vote for me," and, "name one country run by a blackness person that'south non a shithole."
The White House is already trying to ignominy Cohen as a liar
On Tuesday, the White Business firm sought to get ahead of Cohen's testimony with a statement preemptively discrediting him as a "disgraced felon" and a "convicted liar."
But Cohen'due south attorney, Lanny Davis, told the Times that his client — maybe anticipating the White House's strategy — "worked very hard on this moment to non only tell the truth, but to back it up with documents."
Davis too told the Times that Cohen'southward response to pushback most his previous false statements volition be, "I take full responsibility, I lied in the past; now you take to decide if I'm telling the truth."
Co-ordinate to Cummings'southward memo, other topics that are fair game for Midweek'due south hearing include "potentially fraudulent or inappropriate practices past the Trump Foundation" and "public efforts by the President and his chaser to intimidate Mr. Cohen or others not to testify."
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox'due south policy and politics coverage .
Source: https://www.vox.com/2019/2/26/18241180/michael-cohen-house-testimony-what-time-how-to-watch
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