Trump lawyer named in Russia investigation
The US Congress has expanded its investigation into whether there were links between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign to include the president’s personal lawyer. The Senate and House intelligence committees has asked for information and testimony from Michael Cohen.
THE US Congress has expanded its investigation into whether there were links between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign to include the president’s personal lawyer.
The Senate and House intelligence committees, which are investigating any possible links, asked for information and testimony from Michael Cohen, who said he had politely declined to co-operate.
Mr Cohen said the request had been “poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered”.
He accused investigators of launching a “fishing expedition” and described the Russia inquiry as a “rush to judgment” which had “yet to produce one single piece of credible evidence that would corroborate the Russia narrative”.
The Associated Press reported that the House committee had issued a subpoena to Mr Cohen.
Michael Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, has already received subpoenas from the House and Senate committees and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Congress also wants to speak to Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, amid suggestions he tried to set up a communications back-channel between the nascent Trump administration and Moscow.
A December meeting between Mr Kushner and Sergey Gorkov, chairman of a state-owned Russian bank, was under increasing scrutiny, the New York Times reported.
Mr Kushner has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has expressed a willingness to co-operate with any investigation.
In a dossier produced by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, it was claimed that Mr Cohen met Russians in Prague in August.
At a subsequent press conference Mr Trump said he had seen Mr Cohen’s passport, his lawyer had not been in Prague, the incident was “a “disgrace” and Mr Cohen deserved an apology. Mr Steele has since stated that the dossier had not been verified and was not intended for publication.
The latest development came as Mr Trump lashed out at Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, in the latest round of an escalating feud.
Mr Trump said on Twitter: “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on Nato and military. Very bad for US. This will change.”
Yesterday, Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, insisted there was no bad blood between the two leaders.
“I think the relationship the president has had with Merkel, he would describe as fairly unbelievable, they get along very well. He has a lot of respect for her,” he said.
“They continue to grow the bond they had during the G7.”
At the weekend Mrs Merkel, speaking at a rally in a Munich beer tent, declared that Europe could no longer completely rely on the US as an ally. Yesterday, her rival, Martin Schulz, leader of the Social Democrats, called Mr Trump “the destroyer of all Western values”.
He added: “One must stand in the way of such a man with his ideology of rearmament.”
In a Berlin meeting with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, yesterday, Mrs Merkel said US ties “have historically been very important for us and will remain so in future”.
Elsewhere in Europe, Nordic prime ministers appeared to recreate the widely circulated picture of Mr Trump touching a glowing orb.
The president put a hand on an illuminated sphere with the Saudi king and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-sisi in a photoshoot that puzzled many on his trip to Saudi Arabia.
The leaders of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark copied the pose, using a football instead.