Michael Cohen, the president’s personal attorney is expected to meet this week with House and Senate intelligence panels. Sources say the meeting is intended as part of the panels’ ongoing investigation of Russian interference with last year’s presidential election.
Cohen’s originally scheduled testimony was previously unexpectedly canceled. The attorney will now privately meet with members of the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence on Tuesday, while on Wednesday a classified session with investigators of the Senate intelligence committee is to take place.
The two sessions will be Cohen’s first appearance in private on Capitol Hill. He is also the latest associate of Donald Trump’s to be interrogated by congressional investigators. Cohen did not want to comment on the matter.
The attorney’s original interview was to be held in September, behind closed doors, but it was canceled after he gave an opening statement to the media, which committee leaders claimed was an attempt on his behalf to prevent the interview from happening. They then demanded that he appear for a public hearing.
The Senate intelligence committee did not respond to comment as to why they decided to have a private interview with the attorney. When the interview was postponed, the chairman of the committee, Richard Burr said what they did “is behind closed doors. We don’t expect individuals who come behind closed doors to publicly go out and tell (their side only).”
Senator Mark Warner said Friday the meeting would be “rescheduled at a later date” and expressed the committee’s appreciation of Cohen’s “cooperation as its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections continues to make progress.”
In his statement, Cohen claimed he had not participated in any collusion with Russia to get Trump elected, nor in any effort to “hack anyone or any organization.”
The House intelligence committee also plans to interviews the Trump campaign’s digital director, Brad Parscale.
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