Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) wants two things concerning President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen: criminal referral for allegedly violating lobbying laws and supposedly committing perjury.
Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan joined forces with Meadows on the second item.
Both of these concerns came up when Cohen testified in front of the committee on Wednesday.
During the testimony, Meadows filed a criminal referral against Cohen, in which he claimed the former lawyer violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Meadows asked Cohen about “money he received from BTA bank in Kazakhstan.” Cohen explained that the bank’s “former CEO had absconded between 4 to 6 billion,” some of which was here in America. The bank asked Cohen for help “in finding, locating that money and helping them collect it.”
From Fox News:
During Cohen’s hearing, Meadows, R-N.C., blasted Cohen for not listing his “foreign contracts” on a “Truth and Testimony” form he was required to fill out prior to his hearing, and called it a “criminal offense.”“This is just one more example of you skirting the truth,” Meadows said to Cohen.Cohen explained that he reviewed the form with his legal counsel, and interpreted the directions differently, but would amend the document before the end of the day if necessary.Last week, Meadows and committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, first addressed the issue, and penned a letter to Cohen attorney Lanny Davis, to seek information about Cohen’s “consulting, lobbying and foreign agent work.”The letter cited information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) — where Cohen had been under criminal investigation–which outlined “a substantial amount of consulting business for himself throughout 2017 by marketing to corporations what he claimed to be unique insights about and access” to Donald Trump.“Cohen’s list of major domestic and foreign corporate clients included AT&T, Novartis, BTA Bank of Kazakhstan, Columbus Nova and Korea Aerospace Industries,” Jordan and Meadows wrote, listing the financial deals between Cohen and the corporations.
Meadows and Jordan asked Attorney General William Barr to have the DOJ investigate Cohen over perjury during the testimony. From Fox News:
“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.”Cohen previously pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress, in relation to past statements before a Senate committee.
The letter included 20 pages of examples, but there was one that took on Twitter. Cohen claimed he did not want a job in the White House, but even CNN’s reporters said they knew this wasn’t true.
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