The likely chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that it would be an impeachable offense if President Trump is found to be complicit in a felony.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler made the remarks after federal prosecutors connected Mr. Trump to illicit hush-money payments allegedly made on his behalf to silence women who say they had sexual relationships with the president before the 2016 campaign.
Still, the New York Democrat and other critics of the president said Congress isn’t to the point of initiating impeachment proceedings, which would begin in Mr. Nadler’s committee.
Mr. Nadler said there are still questions that need answers.
“Whether they are important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question, but certainly they’d be impeachable offenses,” Mr. Nadler said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Even if any crimes were committed before the president took office, Mr. Nadler said, they could rise to the level of impeachment if they were in the service of “fraudulently obtaining” the office.
Federal prosecutors said in court papers filed late last week that Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and fixer, admitted to prosecutors that the hush payments to two women who claimed they had affairs with Mr. Trump were made with the coordination and direction of “Individual-1,” a moniker assigned to Mr. Trump in earlier court filings.
Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in August to multiple federal crimes, including making false statements, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations for arranging the payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Mr. Trump has denied having sexual relationships with either woman and over the weekend denied directing Mr. Cohen to break any laws.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, likewise said lawmakers need to see the “full picture” before they determine whether or not to move ahead with impeachment proceedings.
“Now the question that’s presented just by Michael Cohen’s plea and the Justice Department filing: Is a crime directed and coordinated by the president which helped him obtain office sufficient to warrant his removal from that office?” Mr. Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation. “That’s a legitimate question to ask.”
Sen. Angus S. King Jr., Maine independent, said that if lawmakers move forward on impeachment with the evidence they currently have, then much of the country would see it as “political revenge” and “a coup against the president.”
“I think it’s [a] last resort and only when the evidence is clear of a really substantial legal violation,” Mr. King, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We may get there, but we’re not there now.”
Mr. Cohen took great steps to hide the payments, prosecutors said. He created shell companies, disguised the payments by creating fake invoices, sending the payments in smaller amounts so they would not generate much attention.
Special counsel Robert Mueller also weighed in on Mr. Cohen in a separate filing Friday. Although he took no position on the length of Mr. Cohen’s sentence, he said in a court filing that Cohen should face consequences for lying to Congress about a plan during the 2016 campaign to construct a Trump Tower Russia.
“The sentence should reflect the fact that lying to federal investigators has real consequences, especially where the defendant lied to investigators about critical facts, in an investigation of national importance,” Mr. Mueller wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The government also disclosed that in November 2015, a Russian national who claimed to have ties with Moscow contacted Mr. Cohen offering the Trump campaign political and business “synergy” with Moscow. The unidentified individual told Mr. Cohen he could secure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval for the project.
The person offered to arrange a meeting with Mr. Putin, saying it could have a “phenomenal impact” on the campaign and on Mr. Trump’s business interests.
Mr. Cohen did not follow up with the individual, according to court filings. But the revelation is significant because it shows that Russia may have made overtures to the Trump campaign earlier than originally known.
Mr. Trump said over the weekend that there is nothing in the recent filings that show he colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign.
“On the Mueller situation, we are very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever — there never has been,” the president told reporters. “The last thing I want is help from Russia on a campaign.”
Mr. Cohen said in a letter to Congress that the Trump Tower Moscow project was abandoned by January 2016 and he had not spoken with Russian officials about it. However, the project was still moving forward in June 2016, and Mr. Trump even considered traveling to Russia after the Republican National Convention to keep it alive, according to court documents.
Those same court documents also revealed Mr. Cohen discussed the project with Mr. Trump and members of his family.
“At a time during the campaign when Donald Trump was the presumptive Republican nominee and he was telling the country he has no dealings with Russia, in fact they were having private conversations seeking to enlist the Kremlin’s help in a project that could make him tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, a project that might need Putin’s approval while they were arguing that sanctions on Russia should go away,” Mr. Schiff said.
Attorneys for Mr. Cohen had sought leniency, arguing that he had cooperated with Mr. Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Defense attorneys said in a memo that, by cooperating with the special counsel, Cohen decided to “re-point his internal compass true north toward a productive, ethical and thoroughly law-abiding life.”
Mr. Mueller’s team also said in a new court filing that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has pleaded guilty to financial crimes unrelated to the campaign, lied about his contacts with a Russian business associate and administration officials, a wire transfer to a company working for Mr. Manafort, and information tied to another Justice Department investigation.
Mr. Mueller’s team said Mr. Manafort broke a plea agreement by lying to the FBI — a claim Mr. Manafort’s legal team has disputed.
Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday warned Mr. Trump against trying to pardon Mr. Manafort. That would be a “terrible mistake,” he said.
“Not only does it not pass the smell test, I think it undermines the reason why we have presidential pardons in the first place,” Mr. Rubio, Florida Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think, in fact, if something like that were to happen, it could trigger a debate about whether the pardon powers should be amended given these circumstances.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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