The White House sent President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to Capitol Hill to lie to members of Congress, an attorney for the onetime Trump ‘fixer’ alleged on Wednesday.
Speaking after Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison by a federal judge on Wednesday, Lanny Davis, his lawyer and spokesperson, vowed that his client would have more to say after Special Counsel Robert Mueller ends the Russia investigation.
‘There will come a time after Mr. Mueller is done with his work that Michael Cohen will be sitting in front of a microphone before a congressional committee and what he has to say about the truth will be judged by the members of Congress listening and then will be up to people to decide whether he has got the facts or not,’ Davis told Bloomberg.
Davis said Cohen expects to give testimony to Congress at some point in the future.
He told Bloomberg that the White House and President Trump knew that Cohen would give false testimony to Congress.
Cohen was also sentenced to two months in prison, which will be served concurrently, for lying to Congress.
The White House sent President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen (seen above in New York City on Wednesday after he was sentenced to three years in prison) to Capitol Hill to lie to members of Congress, an attorney for the onetime Trump ‘fixer’ alleged on Wednesday
‘Mr. Trump and the White House knew that Michael Cohen would be testifying falsely to Congress and did not tell him not to,’ Davis said.
Davis would not specify what Cohen would tell lawmakers about his former boss, Trump, and alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections after the Mueller probe.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for crimes including orchestrating hush payments to women in violation of campaign laws before the 2016 election, and he promised to keep cooperating with the U.S. government against his former boss.
Cohen had said in a guilty plea in August that he was directed by Trump to arrange a payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal, and personally pay adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen’s spokesperson and attorney, said his client would continue to cooperate with the U.S. government by telling it what he knows about the dealings of his former boss, President Donald Trump (seen above Wednesday at the White House)
Prosecutors in New York confirmed last week in a court filing that they believed the president ordered the payments to protect his campaign.
Trump has denied the affairs and argues the payments to the two women were not campaign contributions.
‘If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did,’ Trump said in an interview on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley sentenced Cohen to three years for the payments, and unrelated crimes of tax evasion and misleading banks.
He gave Cohen two months for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.
The judge said the two terms would run simultaneously and he set March 6 for Cohen’s surrender.
In the Manhattan courtroom, Cohen told Pauley that ‘blind loyalty’ led him to cover up for Trump. Cohen said he was ready to provide ‘as much information as I truthfully possess’ on the president.
‘I am committed to proving my integrity and ensuring that history will not remember me as the villain of his story,’ Cohen said, choking up at times while giving his statement.
Cohen will testify before Congress after Special Counsel Robert Mueller (seen above in June 2017) completes his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections
‘I am truly sorry and I promise I will be better.’
While the sentence was a modest reduction from the four to five years recommended under federal guidelines, Pauley described Cohen’s crimes as a ‘smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct’ marked by deception and ‘motivated by personal greed.’
He ordered Cohen to forfeit $500,000 and pay restitution of nearly $1.4 million.
Cohen, 52, walked into court with his wife, son and daughter amid a crowd of photographers and reporters.
His 23-year-old daughter, Samantha, and 19-year-old son, Jake, both wept silently in the courtroom, the son wiping his eyes with his jacket sleeve.