Michael Cohen will provide closed testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, Feb. 8, committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced Monday.
Schiff said that Cohen agreed to come before the committee voluntarily despite concerns provoked by President Trump’s public attacks on Cohen’s father-in-law.
“Mr. Cohen has relayed to the Committee his legitimate concerns for his own safety as well as that of his family, which have been fueled by improper comments made by the President and his lawyer,” Schiff said. “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. These attacks on Mr. Cohen’s family must stop.”
Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, have alleged that Cohen’s father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, has links to organized crime and shady finances worthy of federal investigation. Cohen cited those comments last week when backing out of a scheduled public testimony before the House Oversight Committee. The Senate Intelligence Committee subsequently subpoenaed Cohen to testify before them.
Why did it go from public to closed door?
The article says it’s due to the threats made to Cohen and his family. I expect the real reason is to prevent immunizing indictees via Cohen’s testimony.
I’m sick of all this stuff taking place in private. The public needs to know what is happening and see the actual evidence. NOW!!
So does this mean that the 'pubs have finally named their members to the Intel Committee? My understanding as of today was that they hadn’t and the committee was blocked from starting their work until the rest of the committee was named.
And I agree that it’s a disgrace not to hold these hearings in public but it also means that BLOTUS won’t be able to watch them and live tweet them.
He will have to wait until his stooges on the committee breach security.