Boca Raton’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch said on a national broadcast Friday morning that if reports are true that President Donald Trump told his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to lie about Russia then that would constitute a violation of Trump’s oath of office.
Deutch, who chairs the U.S. House Ethics Committee, stopped short of saying he would consider that an impeachable offense despite several direct questions to that point on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show Friday morning.
But while careful to not use the “impeach” word, Deutch said the latest report was part of a bigger case, and declared, “What’s Congress going to do about it?” He did not indicate that his House Ethics Committee would investigate, but said the House Judiciary Committee is ready to hold hearings on it.
Deutch was on the show to talk about reports published by Buzzfeed News late Thursday that said that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. In the same story, Buzzfeed reported that Cohen, already convicted of arranging hush money on Trump’s behalf, had arranged a plan for Trump to visit Russia during the presidential campaign to meet with President Vladimir Putin to forward efforts to build the tower. Buzzfeed cited two unnamed federal law enforcement sources for the reports.
“If this is true this is more evidence that…
