President Donald Trump’s former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen will testify before the House Intelligence Committee next week.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, said Monday that Cohen agreed to appear voluntarily before the committee behind closed doors on Feb. 8.
Last week, Cohen backed out of his planned public testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee — initially scheduled for Feb. 7 — citing fears for his family’s safety after Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, publicly harangued Cohen and his father-in-law.
“As I’ve previously stated with my colleagues, Chairmen Elijah Cummings and Jerrold Nadler, efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are tactics we expect from organized crime, not the White House,” Schiff said in a statement announcing Cohen’s testimony. “These attacks on Mr. Cohen’s family must stop. Federal law prohibits efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.”
Top Democrats on the Oversight panel have suggested that Cohen could be subpoenaed to appear before lawmakers in public, but no decision has been made.
Cohen’s attorneys have already indicated that their client would not be able to publicly discuss matters related to ongoing federal probes — most notably, those being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller and prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Top Republicans on the Oversight committee said last week that Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer and spokesman, told GOP staffers that Cohen would only be able to share “anecdotes” about his time working for Trump.
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Trump’s former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen will testify before the House Intelligence Committee next week https://t.co/L0bF50pJVq
— POLITICO (@politico) January 28, 2019
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