UPDATE: Will Michael Cohen be prosecuted for committing perjury again?

Comment by Jim Campbell

February 28th, 2019

President Trumps former lawyer had already been convicted of several felonies.

Michael Cohen has already been disbarred for committing perjury while testifying under oath to Congress.

 

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, leaves federal court in New York on Thursday after a surprise appearance. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

 

Why in the world would anyone believe he is telling the truth now?

Perhaps he cut a deal for a shorter deal.

 

 

In any event, when he gets out of prison he will no longer be seen in the courts, he is finished.

Cohen plead guilty to lying about Russia hotel project (Source)

The Washington Examiner

by Jerry Dunleavy

February 28, 2019

Michael Cohen provided marathon testimony in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee today and Republicans argued that he lied.

Again. The House Oversight Committee’s ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, ended with a statement outlining what he saw as new falsehoods.

 

 

Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress in Nov. 2018 after lying to Congress about the timing of the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.

In his closing statement, Jordan said, “We know Mr. Cohen has been dishonest in the past … that’s why he’s going to prison in two months.”

And then he laid out what he saw as Cohen’s numerous lies in front of Congress today.

Bank Fraud

Jordan: “He said he never defrauded any bank when he was being questioned by Mr. Comer.

Obviously that’s not true because he’s going to prison for that very offense.” Cohen’s statement that “I never defrauded any bank” was plainly false.

One of his felony convictions is making false statements to a financial institution.

Legal Ethics

Jordan: “He said today that he was a good lawyer who understood the need to represent his client with legal advice.

But in his written testimony he said that he never bothered to consider whether payments to women were improper, much less the right thing to do.”

Cohen’s prepared statement said he did not think about “whether that was improper,” nor did he think about “whether it was the right thing to do or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.”

While Cohen’s view of his skill as a lawyer might well be inflated, his laxness over the payments was probably not criminal.

Foreign Business Dealings

Jordan: “He attested, in his signed truth and testimony form, that he did not have any reportable contracts with foreign government entities, but earlier he admitted to having agreements with at least two foreign entities owned, in part, by foreign governments: BTA Bank of Kazakhstan and Korea Airspace Industries of South Korea.”

Both Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank JSC and South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd confirmed that they made payments to Cohen, which is difficult to reconcile with the form he signed.

Hush Money Payments

Jordan: “He said to Chairman Cummings that Donald Trump directed him and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to, quote, ‘Go back to his office and figure out how to make a $130,000 payment.

Please see the entire article below.

 

But in his testimony, he says, ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from my home equity loan line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact the campaign.’”

On the face of it, Cohen’s two statements are hard to square.

Women for Cohen

Jordan: “And in response to a question about him paying to set up the fake Twitter account — ‘Women for Cohen’ — that he didn’t direct the commission of that Twitter account.

He says, ‘I didn’t set that up, and it was done by a young lady who works for the firm.’

When, in fact, he did ask the IT firm Red Finch to set it up, according to the owner of Red Finch.”

It’s been widely reported that Michael Cohen hired Red Finch Solutions in 2014.

On this point, Cohen seemed to be evasive at best.

Job with the Trump Administration

Jordan: “Finally, he said he didn’t want a job with the administration, but the attorneys with the Southern District of New York stated that this was a fact.

When asked about this, he said, ‘I wouldn’t call them liars, but that statement is not accurate.’”

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. both tweeted today that Cohen was lying about not wanting a position with the Trump administration following Trump’s election.

As Cohen has already discovered, lying to Congress under oath is perjury, a felony.

His lawyer Lanny Davis, an ally of the Clinton family, is likely to be scouring the transcript of his more than five hours of testimony to assess whether he has put himself in further legal jeopardy.

THE END