Cohen subpoenaed to testify before Senate Intel

President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has been subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, his spokesman and attorney Lanny Davis confirmed.

“This morning the Senate Intelligence Committee served Michael Cohen with a subpoena,” Davis, an opinion contributor to The Hill, said in a brief statement Thursday.

CNN was first to report the news, saying Cohen was subpoenaed to testify in mid-February before he reports to federal prison.

{mosads}Cohen was interviewed by committee staff in fall 2017 as part of its ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Since then, he has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump property in Moscow and agreed to cooperate in a separate federal probe run by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Davis subsequently told The Hill that Cohen would comply with the subpoena but that the details of his appearance, including the date and scope of the questioning, would need to be discussed.

Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has repeatedly signaled the committee would like to bring Cohen back for questioning, raising the possibility he could be subpoenaed if he did not agree to a return appearance. The committee has conducted most of its interviews behind closed doors.

A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.

The subpoena comes one day after Cohen postponed his scheduled testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7, citing threats from Trump. That appearance was supposed to be in public.

It remains unclear whether Cohen plans to fight the subpoena to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Cohen has attracted massive attention since April, when a recommendation from Mueller triggered a federal raid of his office and hotel room.

In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to a slew of federal charges, including campaign finance violations stemming from a scheme to pay off women who alleged affairs with Trump before the 2016 election. Cohen implicated Trump in the payment schemes, but the president has denied any wrongdoing. Cohen later pleaded guilty in connection with the Mueller investigation and the special counsel has signaled he offered valuable information.

Trump has attacked his onetime confidant as a liar willing to peddle falsities to prosecutors in order to obtain a lighter prison sentence. In an interview with Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro earlier this month, Trump said Cohen should “give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that’s the one that people want to look at.” Democrats have suggested those comments amounted to witness tampering.

Davis said in a statement Wednesday that Cohen would postpone his testimony to the Oversight and Reform Committee “due to ongoing threats against his family” from Trump and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December for his crimes. He is due to report to jail in early March.

Updated at 12:07 p.m.