In a Thursday announcement, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee revealed that the first big gathering of the panel, which serves as the main investigative branch of the House of Representatives, will take place February 7, and will feature testimony from none other than Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
In the last few months, attention to Cohen’s case has only grown in conjunction with the ongoing probes involving Trump himself. Although the President strenuously denies that Cohen’s case has anything to do with him, Cohen’s testimony in federal court that essentially turned Trump into “Individual One” — an unindicted co-conspirator in two counts of felony campaign finance violations — and tied their fates together permanently.
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine that Cohen goes to prison having testified that Trump directed him to commit at least some of the crimes he’s been convicted of, especially considering the President’s unwise public statements about “acting on the advice of counsel,” a move that could land all of the evidence (audio, video, or otherwise) — so carefully shielded from public view by the court-appointed “Special Master” who declared much of the material seized in the FBI raid on Cohen’s properties as “privileged” — in the hands of prosecutors who would then be able to use it against Trump himself.
It’s almost unthinkable that the Oversight Committee would fail to question Cohen under oath about his court testimony about Trump, being as it was not the focus of his court case and almost seemed to go by in passing, other than coverage in the news. No consequence has yet reached Trump for his involvement in Cohen’s crimes, and because Cohen was found guilty of lying to Congress, it would be in the interest of the Oversight Committee to determine whether, like his campaign finance violations, Cohen did so at the direction of Trump himself.
Featured image via screen capture
