WASHINGTON — Senate investigators probing Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election will zero in on reported links between Moscow and President Trump’s businesses when longtime Trump associate Michael Cohen answers questions from a congressional panel Tuesday.
Cohen, who served as executive vice president and special counsel at the Trump Organization and continues to serve as the president’s personal attorney, is perhaps the closest associate to Trump outside of his immediate family. He will speak with professional staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday weeks after the president’s son and son-in-law spoke with it and other congressional panels looking into Russia’s meddling in U.S. elections.
Cohen confirmed to NBC News this weekend that he would appear before the committee. This spring he said he would only offer testimony if subpoenaed.
According to congressional sources, the committee intends to pursue several lines of questioning with Cohen, with the goal of putting him on the record on key topics that have drawn scrutiny during the investigation, including potential direct contacts between Trump associates and people with close ties to the Kremlin.
Cohen had been mentioned by name in a dossier on Trump prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleging he attended a secret meeting in Prague in August 2016 to discuss Russia’s hacking of Democratic targets. Cohen has adamantly denied such a meeting, and his own attorney called the allegations “wholly unsubstantiated” and even “libelous” in a letter to leaders of the House Intelligence Committee in August.
Committee staff will also likely ask Cohen about emails he received in 2015 from Felix Sater, a former Trump associate with a criminal past, about a potential deal to open a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. Some of the emails were published by the New York Times in August.
Cohen has acknowledged he met with Sater, a former FBI and CIA informant who served prison time for stabbing a man in the face with a broken glass during a Manhattan bar fight, as well as a member of the Ukrainian parliament. The meeting reportedly involved discussion of a peace plan for Ukraine that would end the sanctions imposed against Russia because of its incursions in Ukraine. Cohen denies discussing the topic.
Cohen can also offer broad insight into the inner workings of Trump’s real estate dealings that could guide the committee as it hears testimony from other witnesses. Cohen will not testify under oath, but federal statute makes any misleading or false testimony to Congress subject to criminal penalty.
Though senators are allowed to attend the testimony, such private questioning allows the committee’s professional staff to address topics of interest in greater specificity, and without the political posturing that might come in a public setting.
Spokespeople for the Senate Intelligence Committee have declined to confirm Cohen will appear Tuesday, as has been the case for the various congressional panels involving closed-door appearances by potential witnesses. Trump’s son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, appeared before the panel in July.