Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer slammed House Democrats on Wednesday for scheduling a high-profile congressional hearing with President Trump’s former attorney while Trump is overseas meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“The Democrats could’ve scheduled these hearings with Michael Cohen any time they wanted,” Spicer said on Fox Business Network. “They knew when he was going abroad.”
{mosads}“He’s sitting down with the leader of North Korea to try to solve the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which would make not just that peninsula and that region safer, but the entire world,” he added.
Spicer called the hearing “a distraction,” saying that the Trump team is obligated to pay attention to it.
“They have to know what Michael Cohen’s saying, the accusations that he’s lobbing, which means that every second that they’re doing that, they’re not focused on making the world a safer place,” he said.
Spicer emphasized that his issue with the hearing was based on scheduling, not content.
“This hearing could be scheduled tomorrow, next week, and it would’ve been fine. The idea that they chose today of all day really says a lot,” he said.
Cohen, who in May is set to begin a three-year prison sentence for crimes he says were committed at Trump’s behest, had originally been scheduled to appear earlier this month. He abruptly postponed that testimony, citing threats from President Trump and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The postponement came after the president suggested in an interview with Fox News that he had knowledge of damaging information on Cohen’s father-in-law.
“I am pleased to announce that Michael Cohen’s public testimony before the Oversight Committee is back on, despite efforts by some to intimidate his family members and prevent him from appearing,” Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement last week.
Trump is meeting with Kim in Vietnam for their second summit as the administration pushes Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal.