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Rep. Steve Cohen told CNN that he believes President Donald Trump’s son and son-in-law will be indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation for communications with Russia during the 2016 elections.
“I think they’re getting closer to knowing that the truth’s going to come out, that there was activities with the Trump campaign in Russia in releasing those hacks and guiding them to the states and the localities where they came from. Some of that was Jared Kushner’s responsibility, some of it was Donald Junior,” said Cohen, a Democrat who represents Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District in Memphis.
“I think you’re probably going to see indictments against both of those people.”
Host Wolf Blitzer asked Cohen to clarify his statement.
Cohen reiterated the remark in his reply: “I think that’s entirely possible, and I think the president’s going to go totally off his rocker, not that he’s on it now, and then issue pardons.”
Pressed by Blitzer, Cohen did not offer proof for his assertion, but said “you can see where it’s going.”
Meanwhile, the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort began Tuesday with jury selection, sending Mueller’s investigation into a new phase with its first case before a jury.
Manafort’s trial, in which he faces charges on 18 counts of violating tax and banking laws, is a high-profile test of the Mueller team’s investigation into Russian election interference in 2016.
Manafort faces a maximum of 305 years in prison if he is convicted on all charges. Prosecutors say Manafort hid millions of dollars in income from lobbying for Ukrainian politicians, failed to pay taxes while spending the money on US real estate and luxury purchases and lied to banks to take out more than $20 million in loans.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday embraced a line of defense offered by his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that “collusion is not a crime,” even though he continued to deny any alleged ties between his campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election.
“Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!” Trump tweeted.
The President has repeatedly denied that there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and he told The New York Times in December that “collusion is not a crime.”
Legal experts, however, have repeatedly said that anyone found collaborating with Russia on the 2016 election could be charged with other crimes, such as conspiracy, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has not concluded.
