WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not be testifying before Congress on Feb. 7 as planned, Cohen's lawyer announced Wednesday.

Noting that Cohen had agreed to testify voluntarily, his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a statement that recent comments by Trump and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani had forced Cohen to put off the appearance.

"Due to ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani, as recently as this weekend, as well as Mr. Cohen's continued cooperation with ongoing investigations, by advice of counsel, Mr. Cohen’s appearance will be postponed to a later date," the statement said.

Cohen, who served as Trump's personal lawyer for many years, has pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges and charges of lying to Congress related to his work for Trump, as well as fraud charges. He was sentenced to three years in prison as a result of the pleas, but his congressional testimony was to come before starting his sentence.

"This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first," Davis said.



Davis said in the statement that Cohen "looks forward to testifying at the appropriate time" before the House Oversight Committee — although one senior Democrat on the committee has suggested that a subpoena for Cohen's testimony is expected to follow Wednesday's announcement.



The committee's chair, Rep. Elijah Cummings, didn't go quite that far in a joint statement issued with House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, saying that "not appearing before Congress was never an option" — but not saying that a subpoena would be forthcoming.

"We will not let the President’s tactics prevent Congress from fulfilling our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities," the pair said in the statement. "This will not stop us from getting to the truth. We expect Mr. Cohen to appear before both Committees, and we remain engaged with his counsel about his upcoming appearances.”

Cohen's testimony was highly anticipated — but also could have ended up being a bit of a letdown due to reports that he would not be testifying about matters still under investigation by the special counsel's office.

This past week, Trump suggested that Cohen's father-in-law should be "watch[ed]" in connection with what Trump tweeted were Cohen's actions of "[l]ying to reduce his jail time!"