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Cohen's lawyers, Lanny Davis and Michael Monico, told lawmakers in a letter Thursday that Cohen had discovered important files on a hard drive that might be useful to investigators.
Cohen is asking for more time – and congressional help – to persuade the South District of New York to allow him to defer the statement to jail so he can review the records. Cohen's lawyers wrote in the letter, obtained by CNN, that they were hoping for a reduction of the sentence, and that on May 6, the date on which Cohen should report to prison "will be significantly postponed as long as He will collaborate fully with the prosecutors and the Congress ".
He asks the top Democrats sitting on committees where he testified to write letters describing his cooperation, which he could use to lobby prosecutors for a less severe sentence.
"We hope this memorandum demonstrates that Mr. Cohen needs to be readily available and immediately available to provide ongoing Congressional assistance to enable him to fulfill his oversight responsibilities of the executive branch. could access a hard drive with important documents, "says the letter.
"However, with 30 days before he goes to jail, time is no longer a luxury of which he is capable," added Cohen's lawyers.
Cohen testified at Capitol Hill earlier this year and accused President Donald Trump of financial fraud and ordering the payment of money to women alleging facts.
Cohen was sentenced last year to three years in prison for financial crimes, campaign finance violations and congressional mentors. He was originally scheduled to go to prison in early March, but that date was postponed by two months as he was preparing for his testimony before Congress.
It is not clear which committees received letters from Cohen or what they plan to do in response. The Democrats who ran the three committees where Cohen testified refused to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Cohen's lawyers wrote that the letters were not sent to Republicans, but they were "willing to do so" if they were interested in the information that he could provide.
Republicans from several of the committees where Cohen testified accused the former personal attorney of the president of lying during his appearance, including statements by Cohen that he had never asked for a pardon. Trump and that he did not want work at the White House. The leading Republicans of the House's oversight committee referred Cohen to the Department of Justice for what he's investigating.
Cohen provided several financial documents to corroborate his charges against Trump, including a $ 35,000 refund check signed by Trump that was posted during his public testimony. Cohen's lawyers wrote that his testimony had sparked new requests for information and assistance from Congress and New York State authorities.
But now, Cohen claims to have found a new hard drive containing millions of additional files.
"Working alone, Mr. Cohen only had the time to cover less than 1% of the disk, or about 3,500 files," wrote Cohen's lawyers. "Mr. Cohen needs time, resources, and help to separate the 14 million records from personal and privileged documents so that the rest can be reviewed by various congressional committees."
When Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in jail, the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan did not give him a cooperation agreement that could have helped to reduce his sentence.
In the prosecutors' statements in court and in their statement of sentence, they pointed out that Cohen should not be considered a cooperating witness. Cohen did participate in the special council investigation, they said, but he "repeatedly refused to provide complete information about any additional criminal activity in which he could have had or would have known about it".
In the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan, defendants who wish to enter into a cooperation agreement are generally required to disclose this information to prosecutors.
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