2 Top Republicans Demand DOJ Open Criminal Probe Into Michael Cohen
Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland this week in which the two asked the Justice Department to prosecute Michale Cohen for perjury.
Cohen, a one-time personal attorney to former President Donald Trump, is currently a star witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the controversial and ongoing Trump “hush money” trial in New York.
Bragg’s office is trying Trump on 34 felony counts of allegedly falsifying business records in what the DA has called an effort to conceal payments to former adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Daniels claimed she had an affair with Trump almost two decades ago, which Trump has vehemently denied.
Cohen, a convicted felon, said he paid her on behalf of Trump to keep her claims under wraps just weeks before the 2016 election.
Now that Cohen is a witness in the politically-charged trial of Trump – the first criminal trial of a former or current president in American history – Jordan and Comer want him tried by the DOJ for what they said were clear instances in which he had lied to Congress in 2019.
The House Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee chairs said in their Wednesday letter to Garland that they had found six lies Cohen told while under oath during testimony in February 2019 in which he claimed Trump reimbursed him after he paid off Daniels.
“Cohen’s testimony is now the basis for a politically motivated prosecution of a former president and current declared candidate for that office,” Jordan and Comer stated. “In light of the reliance on the testimony from this repeated liar, we reiterate our concerns and ask what the Justice Department has done to hold Cohen accountable for his false statements to Congress.”
Jordan and Comer said they had identified six instances in which Cohen “made willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact” when testifying before the Oversight Committee.
The House Republicans listed the following items as examples of Cohen’s alleged perjury:
Cohen denied committing various fraudulent acts to which he had pleaded guilty in federal court.
Cohen repeatedly testified that he did not seek employment in President Trump’s White House, despite evidence from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York demonstrating that “Cohen privately told friends… that he expected to be given a prominent role and title in the new administration.”
Cohen stated that he did not direct the creation of a Twitter account known as @WomenForCohen, which is contradicted by statements from the owner of the IT firm that created the account for Cohen.
Cohen attested in his Truth in Testimony form that he did not have any reportable foreign government contracts, despite entering into two contracts in 2017 with entities owned in part by foreign governments.
Cohen’s testimony at the hearing contradicted various aspects of his written statement submitted in advance of the hearing.
Cohen asserted that he committed crimes out of “blind loyalty” to President Trump, which was contradicted by findings made by federal prosecutors and a federal court.
Jordan and Comer concluded Cohen’s testimony was “full of intentionally false statements.”
“And now, a popularly elected, partisan prosecutor is using this convicted liar to carry out his politically motivated prosecution of a former president,” the congressmen said to Garland.
“Therefore, we again request that the Justice Department investigate whether any of Mr. Cohen’s testimony warrants another charge for violating [federal law.]”
Jordan and then-Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina first recommended a criminal probe into Cohen more than five years ago – immediately after he testified before the Oversight Committee – on Feb. 28, 2019.
The pair alleged then that Cohen had “committed perjury and knowingly made false statements,” CNN reported at the time.
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