One day before Michael Cohen appears before the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a conservative firebrand from Florida and a White House ally, accused President Trump’s former lawyer of straying from his marriage and suggested that his wife would leave him once he goes to prison.
“Hey @MichaelCohen212 - Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…”
Gaetz’s tweet, which appeared to be based on nothing of inherent knowledge, gave off the veneer of a thinly-veiled threat to Cohen in the hours before he is set to discuss his time working as Trump’s right-hand man and his involvement in hush-money payments to alleged mistresses.
But in a phone interview shortly after he posted the item, the Florida Republican insisted that he was not engaging in witness intimidation at all.
“No,” he stressed, “it is challenging the veracity and character of a witness. We do it everyday. We typically do it during people's testimony.”
“This is what it looks like to compete in the marketplace of ideas,” he added.
Not surprisingly, at least one prominent lawyer saw the matter slightly differently.
“It’s that last line that seems really problematic,” emailed Stephen Vladeck, a professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law, “‘She’s about to learn a lot…’ What is the test implied in that statement, as opposed to the insinuation that as a result of his testimony, his wife is going to come into negative information about him?”