Two Republicans in the Oversight Committee hearing yesterday with Michael Cohen are referring Cohen to the Justice Department for perjury:
Meadows and Jordan write to the Justice Department and refer Michael Cohen for possible criminal prosecution, claiming to have evidence that Cohen "committed perjury and knowingly made false statements" in his House Oversight testimony.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 28, 2019
Here we goooo.. Inbox: Jordan and Meadows Refer Michael Cohen to the Justice Department for Perjury
— Alana Abramson (@aabramson) February 28, 2019
Cohen swore an oath to the truth before the hearing began yesterday.
Here’s more on the letter:
FOX NEWS – House Oversight Committee Republicans on Thursday referred ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen to the Justice Department for alleged perjury, claiming he lied during sworn testimony before the panel a day earlier about a number of issues including his ambitions to work in the Trump administration and contracts with foreign entities.
Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., penned a letter Thursday to newly sworn-in Attorney General William Barr, citing evidence that Cohen “committed perjury” during his hearing before the committee on Wednesday.
“We write to refer significant evidence that Michael D. Cohen committed perjury and knowingly made false statements during his testimony before an Oversight and Reform Committee hearing,” they wrote. “While testifying under oath, Mr. Cohen made what appear to be numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact contradicted by the record established by the Justice Department in United States v. Cohen.”
They added: “Mr. Cohen’s testimony before the Committee at times was in direct contradiction to assertions contained in pleadings authored by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY.) There are other instances in which Mr. Cohen’s statements to the Committee were immediately contradicted by witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the subject matter.”
The letter said, in part, that Cohen’s testimony “was a spectacular and brazen attempt to knowing and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to numerous material facts.” They claimed the testimony included “intentionally false statements designed to make himself look better on a national stage,” adding: “Mr. Cohen’s prior conviction for lying to Congress merits a heightened suspicion that he has yet again testified falsely before Congress.”
Here’s how they say Cohen perjured himself before the committee yesterday:
Jordan and Meadows went on to detail the alleged false statements made by Cohen on Wednesday.
“Cohen denied committing various fraudulent acts that he has pleaded guilty to in federal court,” they wrote, specifically referring to Cohen’s statement that he “never defrauded any bank.”
The letter cited Cohen’s plea agreement with prosecutors at SDNY, where it refers to his crimes as “bank fraud.”
Cohen has pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a banking institution, one count of causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of excessive campaign contributions.
“This point—Mr. Cohen’s culpability for bank fraud—materially affects the Committee’s assessment of his credibility,” they wrote.
In the hearing, Cohen admitted that Cummings said he would nail him to a wall if he came in here and lied to the committee. So why hasn’t Cummings joined in this referral letter? Probably because he didn’t really mean it. They got what they wanted out of Cohen and don’t really care if he lied to the committee.
We also know he lied about never wanting to be in the White House, but I would have been shocked if they included in that in the letter considering there’s no established record on that.
So we’ll see if Barr does anything about this. In a way it’s his first test by Republicans to see if he’ll take action or brush it off as not important.