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Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen subpoenaed by U.S. Senate panel - adviser


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Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen subpoenaed by U.S. Senate panel - adviser

By David Alexander and Karen Freifeld

 

2019-01-24T170639Z_1_LYNXNPEF0N1S1_RTROPTP_3_USA-TRUMP-COHEN.JPG

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, arrives for his sentencing at United States Court house in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/Files

 

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's former personal attorney and self-described "fixer" Michael Cohen has been subpoenaed to testify by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, Cohen's adviser Lanny Davis said on Thursday.

 

Coming one day after he postponed an appearance before a House of Representatives investigative panel, the subpoena thrust Cohen back into the spotlight, with MSNBC and CNN saying he will appear before the intelligence panel in mid-February.

 

"This morning the Senate Intelligence Committee served Michael Cohen with a subpoena," Davis said in a statement.

 

A New York lawyer who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, Cohen is a central figure in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible ties between Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as possible obstruction of justice.

 

Trump, whose presidency has been clouded for many months by the Mueller investigation, called his former confidant Cohen a "Rat" in a tweet last month for cooperating with prosecutors.

 

In a Fox News interview this month, Trump suggested he had damaging information on Cohen's father-in-law. "That's the one that people want to look at," Trump said in the interview.

 

Cohen's adviser Davis on MSNBC accused Trump of attacking Cohen's father-in-law "as a way of getting to Mr. Cohen, and that is called witness tampering, obstruction of justice."

 

Davis urged Congress "to protect Mr. Cohen by voting a resolution of censure that you can criticize Mr. Cohen but don't attack a man's family and intimidate a witness before Congress."

 

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to making false statements to both the House and Senate intelligence committees. He acknowledged that he had been involved in pursuing a Trump skyscraper project in Moscow deep into the 2016 campaign, later than he had disclosed in letters to the committees in 2017.

 

After Cohen's guilty plea, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr confirmed that his panel had made multiple referrals to Mueller's office for prosecution, including cases that could involve lying to the committee.

 

In December, Cohen was sentenced by a federal judge in Manhattan to two months for those lies to Congress, although that term will run simultaneously with the three years he got for arranging hush payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and unrelated financial crimes.

 

A spokesman for Burr declined to comment on the subpoena.

 

Russia has denied U.S. intelligence agencies' findings that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election. Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin. The president regularly attacks Mueller's inquiry as a "witch hunt."

 

Cohen on Wednesday postponed scheduled Feb. 7 testimony to the House Oversight Committee because of what Davis described as "ongoing threats against his family from Trump" and Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

 

The chairmen of that committee and the House Intelligence Committee have both said they also want Cohen to testify.

Cohen is scheduled to begin serving his sentence in March.

 

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Nathan Layne and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and James Dalgleish)

 

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-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-01-25
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20 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Good news. If anyone is a 'rat' it's trump who constantly endeavours to undermine the Rule of Law and steadily erodes the functions of democratic Government.

I doubt that the Senate Republicans' reason for inviting Cohen is in furtherance of investigating Trump.

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3 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

I doubt that the Senate Republicans' reason for inviting Cohen is in furtherance of investigating Trump.

Exactly. Their purpose is to determine the extent of damage Cohen can do to Trump and start building a defense against impeachment.

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37 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

I doubt that the Senate Republicans' reason for inviting Cohen is in furtherance of investigating Trump.

Take your point, but there are six Democrats on the committee. One step closer to shining the light on truth?

Edited by simple1
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Something like this:

 

‘Mr Cohen, can you please tell us why you recently changed your mind to voluntarily give testimony to the House?

 

Might I remind you that you are under oath and what you say will be recorded as sworn testimony before the Senate’

Edited by Chomper Higgot
First sentence
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50 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

Just read the Stone indictment.  The word "collusion" comes up....zero times.

There is no crime called Collusion.

 

There is however a crime called Conspiracy.

 

Moreover, Mueller’s charged and/or imprisoned enough Trump associates for you to have learned by now that he initially arrests on serious but easily proven crimes and uses those indictments to pressure the suspect to cutting a plea deal.

 

The plea deal comes with a complete confession(*) and a requirement to blag on others further up the crime tree.

 

Roger Stone is going to sing like a canary.

 

 

 

(* Manafort thought he could outsmart Mueller and hide some of his crimes -look where tat got him)

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9 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

His ‘Tricky Dicky’ tattoo is going to be something special for the boys in the showers.

True. I wonder if he is going to auction off all those nice suits. He is a smooth operator, soon to be a smooth bottom bunker.

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