„If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop.“
Hours after BuzzFeed News published an explosive report alleging that President Trump directed his longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about his business dealings in Russia, Democratic members of Congress are resolving to get to the bottom of what happened.
The general reaction among House Democrats was that this was a very serious allegation — and that they wanted to hold hearings and investigate to see if the story was true. And some are already on the record as saying that if it is true, impeachment would be the appropriate response.
Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-TX), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted late Thursday that if the story is true, “President Trump must resign or be impeached.”
The chair of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), didn’t go quite so far, but he vowed he and his committee will do “what’s necessary to find out” if the report is in fact true.
Impeachment hearings, were they to take place, would be held by the Judiciary Committee. And the chair of that committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), tweeted Friday morning that “directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime” and that his committee will “get to the bottom of it.”
One member of the committee, Rep.
