Jim Jordan
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The Democrat-led House Oversight and Reform Committee wants to pour over 10 years of President Donald Trump’s financial records — and the panel’s top Republicans are furious, Politico reported.
According to Trump allies GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the committee asked tax and accounting firm Mazars USA for documents, particularly looking for those related to Trump’s 2014 effort to bid on the Buffalo Bills, Politico reported.
Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen told the panel last month Trump inflated his personal net worth by $4 billion as he looked into the purchase of the NFL team — a deal that never materialized.
Jordan and Meadows fired off a letter to panel chair, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., alleging the request “appears to depart from responsible and legitimate oversight,” and is intended “solely to embarrass President Trump and to advance the relentless Democrat attacks upon the Trump administration.”
“We should not waste our limited resources and energies on matters that do not improve the operations of the federal government or better the lives of our constituents,” Jordan and Meadows wrote, calling Cummings’ investigation “an ill-conceived inquiry into the finances of President Trump when he was a private citizen.”
According to Politico, the lawmakers sent a separate letter to Victor Wahba, the chairman and chief executive officer of Mazars USA, asserting Cummings didn’t consult with the GOP side of the panel committee before asking for the documents.
“They complain about everything I do,” a dismissive Cummings told Politico. “We’re just seeking the truth.”
Source: NewsMax Politics
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, took offense with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's insistence there was collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, saying Attorney General William Barr's summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's findings proved the point.
"Did he not read Bill Barr's letter?" Rep. Jordan told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The attorney general said there was no collusion and points out in his letter that there were multiple opportunities for Trump campaign officials to work with Russians, but they didn't do it. Russia dangled the forbidden fruit in front of people all the time and they didn't bite."
Barr's statement could not be stronger, as it meant "total vindication" for Trump, and that means "good news" for the United States as well, Jordan said.
He also slammed Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., for saying in an interview he believes the Christopher Steele discredited dossier on Trump and Russia.
"The dossier, don't take my word for it, take Jim Comey's: He said it was salacious and unverified," Jordan said. "Jim Comey said this dossier was not accurate."
"We all know it's National Enquirer garbage," he added. "The scary thing is . . . they took this document, paid for by the Clinton campaign, dressed it all up and took it to the secret court to get the warrant to go and spy on the Trump campaign."
Source: NewsMax Politics
House Democrats don’t think special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report is the “bombshell they anticipated” — and have pivoted to conducting their own probes of President Donald Trump, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Sunday.
In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” Jordan said “we haven’t seen any” indication of the “central charge of the special counsel … to see if this was conspiracy, coordination, or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to impact the election.”
“They don't think this Mueller report is going to be the bombshell they anticipated,” he said of House Democrats. “Now they're launching other charges, other investigations.”
He also chided Democrats for clamoring for Mueller to head the nearly two year investigation.
“Remember, this is Bob Mueller — the guy the Democrats, the Republicans, everyone in town said, ‘this is the guy we need to pick. He can almost walk on water. He's right next to Jesus. This is the guy,’” he said.
“But all indications are that there is not going to be any finding of any collusion whatsoever,” he said.
Source: NewsMax Politics
President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted former House Speaker Paul Ryan for not letting Republicans "go tougher" on Democrats.
"Paul Ryan wouldn't give the right to have any subpoenas," Trump told Breitbart News in an interview.
Trump did not specify what Ryan's colleagues wanted to investigate, but he said Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., "wanted to go tougher, but they weren't allowed to by leadership."
"So, here's the thing — it's so terrible what's happening. You know, the left plays a tougher game, it's very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don't play it tougher," he continued.
"OK? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad," Trump said.
"The left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress . . . with all this [investigating] — that's all they want to do is — you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this," he added.
Ryan has not publicly responded to Trump's remarks.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Michael Cohen is off the hook for misleading the House Oversight Committee about his claim he never asked President Donald Trump for a pardon, The Washington Times reported.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said the president's onetime personal lawyer has now clarified through his own attorney that his testimony "could have been clearer," the news outlet reported.
"Our practice on this committee is to give witnesses an opportunity to clarify their testimony, and that is what Mr. Cohen has done," Cummings said, the news outlet reported. "I do not see the need for further action — at least at this time."
In his Feb. 27 opening statement to the committee, Cohen declared: "I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump."
His lawyers say he stands by that statement — but only in reference to after June 2018, when he left a joint defense agreement with Trump, the news outlet reported. They also admit a previous attorney acting on behalf of Cohen did sound out the president's lawyers about a pardon.
The excuse did not fly with Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who have already asked the Justice Department to investigate if Cohen should face new charges over misleading the committee, the Times reported.
"They're walking back a claim made unequivocally under oath. 'Never' didn't really mean 'never.' Laughable," Meadows tweeted.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Rep. Adam Schiff's staff prepared former Trump attorney Michael Cohen for 10 hours, but he still came before Congress and lied several times, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Friday.
"We should have had a deposition, which we asked for," Rep. Jordan told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "They did 10 hours of preparation with this witness and he came in front of Congress and still lied to us, we think now a total of eight lies."
There is always some interaction with a witness before a hearing, but in Cohen's case, that took 10 hours and several trips to New York, Jordan said, "which is very unusual, particularly when we asked for a deposition and weren't given that opportunity."
Jordan was not able to name all eight instances of lies during the interview, but the "big ones" were Cohen said he never wanted to work at the White House, never sought a pardon, and now there is a discrepancy in what he said he and Schiff had talked about.
"There are a number of situations where a number of instances where we think Mr. Cohen gave us false statements, and that's why we sent a criminal referral letter to the Justice Department – and frankly we are going to send another one because we have learned a few more things since his testimony last week," Jordan said.
Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had told Cohen at the beginning of the public hearing he would be held accountable if he lied, but "we have yet to see anything from him" Jordan said.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen departs after testifying behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
February 27, 2019
By Nathan Layne
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former “fixer” and longtime lawyer, will try to turn the tables on his former boss in congressional testimony on Wednesday that promises to be a media spectacle with potentially high stakes for the Trump presidency.
Cohen, who served as Trump’s lawyer for a decade, will attempt to portray him as racist and a business cheat while providing evidence of criminal misconduct by Trump after he took office in January 2017, a person familiar with his testimony said.
Cohen also plans to offer “granular detail” about Trump allegedly directing hush-money payments to women in violation of campaign finance law, the person said. Cohen pleaded guilty to his role in arranging the payments, and prosecutors in New York said in a December court filing they believed the president ordered the payments to protect his campaign.
Trump has repeatedly denied ordering the payments.
Cohen, 52, who testified behind closed doors to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday and has another non-public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, said he would use Wednesday’s hearing to make the case to the public why it should believe him rather than Trump.
The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform is scheduled to start just as Trump wraps up a dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, and TV networks may show both simultaneously on a split screen.
The White House again questioned Cohen’s credibility on Tuesday, with presidential spokeswoman Sarah Sanders calling him “a convicted liar.”
It is not clear whether the hearing will significantly alter the public’s perception of Trump’s business practices or put him in greater legal peril.
“It will be a spectacle. No question about that,” said Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor. “But after the midday TV drama is over, we’ll see if there is anything that amounts to something from a legal perspective.”
While Cohen is expected to talk on Wednesday about Trump’s interest in a proposed skyscraper project in Moscow long after he secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, the bulk of his testimony will be about allegations of wrongdoing by Trump as a businessman and the hush payments, the source said.
According to a staff memo seen by Reuters, Democratic lawmakers will ask Cohen about evidence they believe shows Trump’s lawyers misled ethics officials about how Cohen was reimbursed for $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star who said she had sex with Trump in 2006.
CREDIBILITY AT ISSUE
The Republicans on the oversight panel, including ranking member Jim Jordan, are likely to question Cohen’s credibility, given his guilty plea for lying to Congress and other crimes.
Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, another staunch Trump ally, who is not on the oversight committee, sparked controversy with a tweet on Tuesday suggesting there was compromising information about Cohen’s private life.
“I guess tomorrow we will find out if there is anyone who Michael Cohen hasn’t lied to,” Gaetz said on the House floor amid criticism that his tweet amounted to witness intimidation.
How Cohen handles the Republican assault could determine whether he is perceived as credible and if his congressional testimony ends up having a similar impact to that of John Dean, who helped bring down President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.
Advocates for Cohen have likened his decision to come clean to federal prosecutors in Manhattan and U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, to that of Dean.
But Dean himself said the significance of Cohen’s testimony would depend on what he had to say. He noted that Cohen did not fully cooperate with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, which is the reason he is due to start a three-year prison sentence in May despite pleading guilty to financial crimes.
Dean, former White House counsel to Nixon, told Reuters that he expected the Republicans to hammer at why he did not cooperate fully with Manhattan prosecutors.
“It could be historic,” Dean, now a frequent commentator on TV, said of Cohen’s testimony. “But if he just gets beat up by the Republicans, it won’t be.”
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Washington; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Peter Cooney)
Source: OANN
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, trashed Michael Cohen's upcoming testimony before the Democratic-majority House Oversight Committee, saying testimony from Andrew McCabe and Rod Rosenstein is more important.
In an interview on Hill.TV's "Rising" show aired Thursday, Jordan, the ranking Republican on the panel, was asked if he is worried Democratic lawmakers will block an explanation from former FBI Deputy Director McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein on reports they discussed removing President Donald Trump from office.
"Of course I'm concerned about it," Jordan replied.
"Instead of bringing in Rod Rosenstein and Andy McCabe to answer our questions, they're bringing in Michael Cohen to testify in front of Congress next week," he continued.
"Michael Cohen to testify in front of Congress, and in two weeks Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress," Jordan said. "So, that's where the Democrats are taking this – instead of obviously where it should go, which is Rod Rosenstein, Andy McCabe, under oath answering questions."
Cohen was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison for charges including lying to Congress, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations, all crimes he committed while working for Trump.
Source: NewsMax Politics
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