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EXCLUSIVE: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is demanding that the Justice Department “take immediate action” to prosecute ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen for making false statements and admitting to stealing during the unprecedented criminal trial of former President Trump.
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Emmer, R-Minn., sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday, urging the DOJ “take immediate action” on the multiple criminal referrals from congressional committees related to alleged lies Cohen has told Congress. Emmer also demanded information on top Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, who worked as a senior Justice Department official in the Biden administration before joining Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team.
Michael Cohen was Bragg’s “star witness” in the unprecedented criminal trial against Trump, who pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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In the letter to Garland, Emmer says Cohen “has proven to be a pathological liar, particularly to Congress.”
Rep. Tom Emmer speaks after a House Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol on Sept. 19, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“In November 2018, Mr. Cohen pled guilty to lying to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” Emmer wrote. “Since then, he has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice on at least three separate occasions by Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and House Committee on the Judiciary for committing perjury and knowingly making false statements during his testimony at a congressional hearing and deposition.”
This fall, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., sent a criminal referral to the DOJ with evidence that Cohen committed perjury during a deposition in 2019. Earlier this month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also sent a criminal referral for Cohen’s alleged false statements during a separate 2019 deposition before their panels.
Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, concluded his testimony in the NY v. Trump trial. (Getty Images)
During his testimony before the House Oversight Committee in 2019, Emmer said Cohen “repeatedly claimed that he did not seek employment in President Trump’s White House, despite evidence from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York demonstrating that ‘Cohen privately told friends… that he expected to be given a prominent role and title in the new administration.’”
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During the NY v. Trump criminal trial, Emmer said Cohen’s “lie to Congress was further confirmed” when a witness “gave a firsthand account of Mr. Cohen’s rage in December 2016 about not receiving a job in the Trump administration.”
While on the stand, Cohen testified that he “had conversations with a lot of people about working with President Trump in the White House” and “would have liked to be considered” for chief of staff “for ego purposes.”
Cohen, during his time on the stand in NY v. Trump this month, also admitted to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump Organization.
Attorney General Merrick Garland (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“In other words, the prosecution’s star witness admitted to a more significant felony than what the prosecution has charged former President Trump with,” Emmer wrote to Garland.
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Emmer demanded the DOJ “take immediate action on the criminal referrals,” and declared that President Biden’s DOJ “already appears to be colluding” with Bragg in the case against Trump, pointing to former senior DOJ official Colangelo.
“The Biden administration’s DOJ already appears to be colluding with the Manhattan District Attorney in the case against former President Trump, considering that Matthew Colangelo left his position as a senior Justice Department official to prosecute his former boss’ political rival,” Emmer wrote.
“Any further effort to protect the district attorney’s star witness, Mr. Cohen, only enhances the appearance that the DOJ is engaging in a two-tiered application of justice,” he continued.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo speaks in DOJ video. (Department of Justice/YouTube )
Colangelo, who is a top prosecutor on Bragg’s team, worked in the Biden administration as acting associate attorney general at the Justice Department. He later became the principal deputy associate attorney general, helping to oversee multiple departments, including the Civil, Civil Rights, Antitrust and Tax Divisions.
Colangelo joined Bragg’s office in December 2022. Charges were brought against Trump in April 2023.
Fox News Digital exclusively reported that Colangelo was paid thousands of dollars by the Democratic National Committee for “political consulting” in 2018.
Emmer demanded Garland turn over documents related to Colangelo’s employment, and provide him with a “written response as to why” he has “not moved forward with the indictment of Mr. Cohen, despite criminal referrals from multiple congressional committees.”
After sending the letter to Garland, Emmer told Fox News Digital that Cohen “is not only a liar and a thief, he’s the only person guilty of a crime in Alvin Bragg’s witch hunt against President Trump.”
“We’re going to use every resource at our disposal to hold Joe Biden’s corrupt Justice Department’s feet to the fire until Convict Cohen is behind bars where he belongs and Americans get the answers they deserve about the shady cast of characters who’re attempting to pull off the greatest sham in American history,” he said.
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
