Reports are out this morning that Michael Cohen spent ten hours or more with Adam Schiff and his staffers before his public testimony last week before the House Oversight Committee.
In fact the reporting says they traveled to New York at least four times!
Here’s more:
FOX NEWS – President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month’s high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter — as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness.
The sources said the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee — including the National Enquirer’s “Catch and Kill” policy, American Media CEO David Pecker and the alleged undervaluing of President Trump’s assets.
Republicans want to know if what we saw last week was really just “well-rehearsed theater”:
But, Republicans have signaled they’re not convinced, with Ohio Rep. Mike Turner sending a letter to Cohen’s team on Wednesday demanding answers.
Turner specifically asked for confirmation of Cohen’s contacts, if any, “with Democratic Members or Democratic staff of SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence], COR [House Committee on Oversight and Reform], or HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] prior to his appearances before House and Senate committees last week” — as well as the lengths of such contacts, their locations and who exactly was involved.
“These questions are important for the public to understand whether or not they were watching witness testimony, a public hearing, or well-rehearsed theater,” he wrote.
There is absolutely no way Democrats would ever let Republicans off the hook if they pulled a stunt like that hearing last week and then were found to have spent over ten hours with the witness – a convicted liar – just ahead of the testimony.
It would be ALL OVER the news, creating suspicion that Republicans had coached Cohen on what to say before the hearing.
But so far this report is getting very little coverage as far as I can tell. It seems the media doesn’t really care that much about it.
Here’s more on the reporting:
During last month’s seven-hour public hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Cohen hesitantly acknowledged, under questioning from Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, that he had spoken with Schiff “about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing.”
But, he did not elaborate on the discussions, which Fox News is told extended significantly longer than the seven hours that the public hearing itself lasted.
One by one, during the dramatic hearing, Cohen fielded questions on precisely the same topics that the sources told Fox News he discussed with Schiff’s staff during the sit-downs in New York.
For example, in response to questioning from Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Cohen discussed the purported practice of paying for the rights to news stories harmful to Trump, only to bury them.
“I was involved in several of these catch-and-kill episodes,” Cohen told Maloney, “but these catch-and-kill scenarios existed between David Pecker and Mr. Trump long before I started working in 2007.”
Schiff’s House Intel Committee spokesman is, of course, suggesting this was all legitimate, that they were just trying to figure out topics to make productive use of Cohen’s time and nothing hokey went on.
I might buy that if it were just one hour or maybe two. But 10 hours? C’mon, we’re not that dumb.