According to CNN, President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is offering Democrats new information in a bid to stay out of jail while he cooperates with Congress.
Cohen's attorneys Lanny Davis and Michael Monico told lawmakers in a letter Thursday that Cohen has discovered substantial files on a hard drive that might be helpful to investigators.
Cohen is asking for additional time -- and congressional help -- to persuade the Southern District of New York to allow him to postpone reporting to jail in order to review the files. Cohen's lawyers wrote in the letter, obtained by CNN, they hoped Cohen would receive a reduced term, and that the May 6 date Cohen is scheduled to report to prison "will be substantially postponed while he is fully cooperating with prosecutors and Congress."
"We hope that this memorandum demonstrates that Mr. Cohen needs to be readily accessible and immediately available to provide ongoing assistance to Congress in order for it to fulfill its executive branch oversight responsibilities. Mr. Cohen was only recently able to access a hard drive with important documents," the letter states.
"However, with 30 days left before he surrenders to prison, time is no longer a luxury he is capable of," Cohen's lawyers added.
"Working alone, Mr. Cohen has only had the time to go through less than 1 percent of the drive, or approximately 3,500 files," Cohen's attorneys wrote. "Mr. Cohen needs time, resources, and assistance to separate out privileged and personal documents from these 14 million files to make the rest available for review by various congressional committees."
Trump reacts:
Trump told reporters Friday, when asked about the documents Cohen's lawyers mentioned in their letter, that they were nothing new.
"They've already got it," Trump said. "He lied numerous times during his last testimony. They had that for many months."
"He lied numerous times during his last testimony," Trump added. "They've had that for many months."
The letter from Cohen's lawyers also argues that he has received a "disproportionate" sentence, and that "there is something unjust" in the fact that "Mr. Cohen remains the only member of the Trump Organization, including Mr. Trump himself, who has been prosecuted, and who is going to prison for conduct almost all of which was for the benefit of Mr. Trump personally and indeed directed by him."
Democrats not likely to help him:
But Cohen’s last-ditch plea for lawmakers to help him reduce and delay his three-year prison term to accommodate that new testimony and evidence will likely fall on deaf ears, a senior Democratic member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform told Roll Call on Friday.
“I think there’d be real reluctance — at least at first blush — to interfere with the judicial process,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, one of the longest-serving members on the Oversight panel that held a blockbuster public hearing with Cohen in February.
“If he wants to come forward with materials, that’s his decision — but it would be without any strings attached,” Connolly said. “I don’t think we can or would get involved in that judicial process. That’s not our role.”
