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Members of Congress, in private, asked Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump, whether he had ever been involved in discussions about a possible pardon.
The Washington Post Legislators on the House and Senate intelligence committees questioned Cohen about any discussions he may have been involved with regarding potential forgiveness. Line of inquiry could lead to evidence of obstruction of justice, anonymous sources said the To post.
People familiar with the subject stated that the committees had asked Cohen if he had already discussed a possible forgiveness, as well as the timing and the people with whom those conversations had taken place. Cohen has publicly stated that he has never solicited nor accepted a pardon from the president. The sources said, again anonymously, that it appeared that Cohen's knowledge of potential forgiveness issues went beyond his public statements.
Beyond these public statements, it remains to be seen why lawmakers might be interested in such issues with Cohen. However, the details surrounding a discussion of forgiveness might suggest that officials seek to persuade the former defender of the president not to cooperate with the police.
Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, described his client's private testimony as "decisive" and "quite explosive". When he declined to comment further, Davis said that new information revealed during the in camera sessions concerned "the lie and the obstruction of evidence".
Cohen's testimony before Congress earlier this week, in which he described the president as a racist and rogue, was compared to the evidence presented to the Watergate committee. Cohen, who is due to return to the House's Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, was sentenced to three years in prison for pleading guilty to bank and tax fraud, funding violations of the election campaign and having lied to Congress.
Because of its past, Republican lawmakers, in particular, have complained about Cohen's reliability. Representatives Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows wrote to Attorney General William Barr earlier this week asking him to verify if Cohen had perjured himself by reporting to the House Oversight Committee that he had never sought to work on the Trump White House.
Trump was unequivocal in his belief that Cohen was lying in Congress. He wrote in a tweet Friday that his former personal attorney had "committed a perjury of a magnitude never seen before". The president also asked, without evidence to support, whether Cohen was being paid by former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for his testimony.
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