Chuck Ross on November 30, 2018
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has made criminal referrals to the special counsel’s office, including regarding former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the chairman of the panel revealed Friday.
“We have made referrals to the special prosecutor,” North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said at a forum held at the University of Texas in Austin. “One instance just highlighted of late, is that the special prosecutor using the transcripts of interviews that we have used in our committee to indict somebody for lying to Congress.”
“It’s a loud message to everybody who’s interviewed by our committee … if you lie to us we’re going to go after you,” the Republican added.
Burr was referring to Cohen, who pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to the Senate panel and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 regarding his work on a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
The committee provided special counsel Robert Mueller with transcripts of testimony provided during the panel’s two-plus year investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Burr said other referrals have been submitted to Mueller’s team, though he did not reveal details of those cases.
Cohen testified to both committees that his work on the project ended in January 2016 and that he did not plan trips to Moscow for himself and Trump.
Cohen admitted in his plea that he continued working to build Trump Tower Moscow through June 2016. He also acknowledged that he planned at one point to visit Russia but reversed course when he backed out of Trump Tower negotiations.
