Rep. Adam Schiff stressed that the decision on when to release transcripts from Michael Cohen's closed testimony will come after the committee’s investigators follow up on various leads from the hearing. | AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Congress Schiff to withhold Cohen transcripts while House Intel continues probe

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee indicated on Tuesday that investigators have a long way to go before releasing the transcripts of Michael Cohen’s testimony before the panel, citing potentially “adverse impacts” to the committee’s wide-ranging investigation.

“We would certainly like to release those transcripts as soon as we are able to, but at the same time, there may be evidence in those transcripts that would prejudice the investigation if they were disclosed before we did other investigative work,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.


Schiff has pledged to make public the full transcripts of Cohen’s nearly 16 hours of testimony before the committee. But he stressed on Tuesday that the decision on when to release those transcripts will come after the committee’s investigators follow up on various leads from Cohen’s testimony, including interviewing other witnesses that could corroborate his claims.

Other members of the Intelligence Committee echoed Schiff, arguing that releasing the transcripts prematurely could backfire.

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“Clearly, releasing the transcript might have the indirect or unintended consequence of influencing or shaping someone else’s testimony. And so we don’t want a situation where other people’s testimony is somehow going to be altered because of what they read before,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Intelligence panel. “That’s the balancing act. It’s a tough one for Chairman Schiff. I think he’s doing his level best to get it all redacted as soon as possible.”

Cohen, who worked as Donald Trump’s personal attorney and fixer for more than a decade, implicated the president in crimes including a conspiracy to buy the silence of women who claimed affairs with Trump. He also turned over a tranche of documents to the Intelligence Committee to back up his claim that Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, edited Cohen’s false 2017 congressional testimony about negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Schiff said on Tuesday that he’s particularly interested in Cohen’s claim — during a public House Oversight Committee hearing — that he overheard a conversation between Trump and his longtime associate Roger Stone in July 2016, during which Stone purportedly said he had spoken with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about an imminent release of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton.

He cited that “very important investigative thread” as a reason why the public disclosure of Cohen’s transcript shouldn’t be rushed.

“We are going to be, and have been, pursuing documents that will allow us to corroborate that testimony,” Schiff said. “We are going to be looking at any documentary evidence, and obviously that could take a number of forms, from phone records to social media records to other documentary evidence. We will be seeking evidence that will be able to either prove or disprove what people testified to.”

Schiff said Cohen — who is set to report to prison on May 6 to serve a three-year sentence for crimes including lying to Congress — is still cooperating with the committee as it probes Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and business empire. Schiff recently hired Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who went after Russian organized crime, as the committee’s director of investigations.

Democrats have vowed to look into potential collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives and whether foreign actors have leverage over Trump.