A U.S. Senate committee has subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to testify, a day after Cohen said he was postponing an  appearance that was scheduled for Feb.  7.

Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, said “we will comply and hope to agree upon reasonable terms, ground rules and a date.”

Cohen made no comments to reporters outside his New York City home.

Pleaded guilty

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to charges of lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee in earlier testimony concerning a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.

He acknowledged that talks with Russian officials did not end earlier, but were carried on deep into the 2016 presidential campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller also accused Cohen of lying to the House Intelligence Committee.

Senators want to hear what Cohen has to say after he admitted lying to Congress and had extensive talks with Mueller.

Cohen said Wednesday he was postponing his highly anticipated public testimony in part because of threats Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, allegedly made against his family.

Both have urged the Justice Department to investigate Cohen’s father-in-law for crimes they did not specify, but allege his involvement in organized crime.

“If he (Trump) wants to criticize Cohen, he can,” Davis said Thursday. “Obviously, picking on his family publicly is a way of silencing him or intimidating him. And certainly he has engendered great fear in his extended family.”

Witness tampering?

Davis accused Giuliani of witness tampering, which is a crime. Some Democrats also accused Trump of the same crime.

Trump has called Cohen a “bad lawyer” and accused him of lying to Mueller to try to get a lighter prison sentence. 

Along with the conviction on charges of lying to Congress, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for paying off women to keep quiet  about alleged affairs with Trump, and for financial crimes unrelated to the president.
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