WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen wrapped up three days of testimony on Capitol Hill on Thursday with a commitment to return.
After spending much of the day testifying in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee, Cohen told reporters that he will be back on March 6 because “there is more to discuss.”
“It was very productive,” he said. “As I said, I am committed to telling the truth.”
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said that the following week, on March 14, real estate developer Felix Sater will appear before the committee in an open session to talk about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen has said that he discussed the proposed development with Trump and his family members well into the 2016 presidential campaign.
Schiff declined to talk about the substance of Thursday’s hearing, but said that Cohen “was fully cooperative and answered all of our questions.”
This week, Cohen appeared in closed sessions before the Senate and House intelligence committees and on Wednesday in a public meeting of the House Oversight Committee. He called Trump a “racist,” a “conman” and a “cheat,” and implicated him in a host of illicit activities. Those ranged from directing him to make hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, to deflating the value of real estate assets for tax purposes, to arranging for a “straw bidder” to run up the price of a portrait of him.
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Speaking to reporters in Hanoi after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump said that Cohen “lied about so many different things,” but noted that Cohen said “no collusion.”
“I said, ‘Why didn’t he lie about that, too?’” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Republicans on the Oversight Committee on Thursday said that they have referred to the Justice Department what they say is evidence that Cohen committed perjury in his testimony. In a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) outlined a series of instances they say is proof of a “spectacular and brazen attempt” by Cohen to “knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to numerous facts.”
Among the instances they cite was Cohen’s contention that he did not seek employment in the White House after Trump was elected. They noted that it contradicts what federal prosecutors in New York have stated in a court filing, and also what others have said about that time.
“It is essential that the Department of Justice investigate these remarkable contradictions between Mr. Cohen, [the New York] prosecutors, and the public accounts of witnesses with firsthand information,” they wrote.