President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, who is to start serving his prison sentence in March, has agreed to testify before a House committee, CNBC reports.
Cohen will appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 7 “to give a full and credible account of the events that have transpired.” His planned testimony is voluntary.
When asked about his former lawyer’s upcoming appearance in an open session of the committee, President Trump said he was “not worried about it at all.”
Cohen previously pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 about details of an aborted Trump real estate project in Russia.
After the lawyer’s planned testimony was announced, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he hoped they could schedule an appearance behind closed doors “in the near future.”
The announcement about Cohen’s appearance also comes a week after Democrats regained control of the House, vowing to use its power to investigate a number of controversies involving the President and his administration.
Cohen’s decision to accept the invitation to testify publicly is the latest sign of the dramatic turn his relationship with Trump has taken in the past year. Whereas he once claimed to be willing to take “a bullet” for the President, Cohen now poses a serious threat to his former client.
In a statement released Thursday by his attorney Lanny Davis, confirming his plans to testify before the House committee, Cohen said, “In furtherance of my commitment to cooperate and provide the American people with answers, I have accepted the invitation by Chairman Elijah Cummings to appear publicly on February 7th before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.”
Cummings thanked Cohen for agreeing to testify, adding that they were consulting with the special counsel as to not interfere with his ongoing investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.
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