Cohen Stabbed in the Back by Dems After Giving Them Everything They Wanted
Michael Cohen may have given Democrats everything they wanted, but it’s not like he’s going to get any help from them now.
That’s at least the message being sent by Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who says he’s not going to help President Donald Trump’s former lawyer delay his jail sentence after Cohen said he had found a hard drive with millions of files that could be of use.
“I don’t get involved in sentencing matters as a practice. I never have in Congress and that’s been my policy,” Schiff, a California Democrat, told CNN on Monday.
That’s the first official response from Democrats regarding a letter from Cohen’s legal team, which was circulated last week among a number of congressional Democrats, according to CNN.
According to The Associated Press, the letter was sent to Schiff, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
On May 6, Cohen is scheduled to begin a three-year sentence on campaign finance violations, financial misdeeds and lying to Congress.
However, he now says that he has access to new information that might be of use to Congress.
“Michael Cohen’s recent public and closed-door testimony to Congressional committees has triggered additional areas for investigation by law enforcement authorities and the Congress,” Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis said in a statement last week, according to Axios.
“In fact, Mr. Cohen has recently obtained a hard drive with 14 million files from his computers and phones over the past 10 years, which we believe has significant value to the various congressional oversight and investigation committees.
“Yet Michael Cohen is the only person in the Trump organization who has been prosecuted. The actions against Mr. Cohen appears to be selective prosecution and the sentence imposed is a disproportionate one. For him to surrender in 30 days would be a detriment to committees search for truth, as well as a miscarriage of justice.”
In the letter, Cohen’s attorneys state that in order to properly present the new data, he needs time before he reports to prison.
“We hope that this memorandum demonstrates that Mr. Cohen needs to be readily accessible and immediately available to provide ongoing assistance to Congress in order for it to fulfill its executive branch oversight responsibilities,” the letter states, according to CNN.
“However, with 30 days left before he surrenders to prison, time is no longer a luxury he is capable of.”
To be fair, this rather reeks of desperation at this point. So has pretty much everything Cohen has done of late, however, so how this is any different than before is confusing to me.
Rep. Schiff still says he wants the information on the hard drives, mind you, he’s just not going to do anything to delay Cohen’s prison sentence to get it.
“We continue to encourage Mr. Cohen to provide us any materials that he has that are relevant to our investigation,” he said.
“We will continue to do so and hope that he has additional information to offer.”
Perhaps Cohen can get some Democrats to sign onto getting his sentence delayed.
However, for most liberals, Cohen is probably old news now.
Yes, he gave the Democrats everything they wanted by accusing the president of financial misdeeds and hush-money payments, but what has he done for them lately?
The Mueller report fell flat, Democratic leadership seems to have little appetite for impeachment and Cohen could be facing a new perjury probe because of the inconsistencies in his recent congressional testimony.
Any sort of consideration the Democrats were going to give a proven liar, therefore, is done for. He’s obsolete.
If he thinks he’s going to get any help avoiding reporting to prison on May 6, he likely has another think coming.
It sure doesn’t sound like Adam Schiff is going to help.
CORRECTION, April 9, 2019: As originally published, this article identified Rep. Cummings as representing Maine. He represents Maryland.
We apologize to Mr. Cummings for the error and to our readers for any confusion we may have caused.
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