Senate panel calls Michael Cohen to open hearing after Trump lawyer shares statement with press

President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, center, departs following a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, agreed Tuesday to testify in an open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing next month -- after the panel abruptly canceled a transcribed interview that had been scheduled.

Cohen was to talk with committee staff on Capitol Hill earlier Tuesday -- but the interview was nixed after Cohen’s team shared a statement with the media against committee wishes.

Cohen "decided to pre-empt today's interview by releasing a public statement prior to his engagement with Committee staff, in spite of the Committee’s requests that he refrain from public comment," Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., told reporters.

"The Committee expects witnesses in this investigation to work in good faith with the Senate," their statement later added.

After Cohen's appearance was rescheduled for Oct. 25, Burr told reporters he did not think the panel would need to subpoena the attorney. Cohen's attorney Stephen Ryan has confirmed to Fox News that his client will appear.

Cohen's statement, which was released to the media Tuesday morning in advance of the scheduled interview, blasted what he described as the "intentionally salacious" and "totally fabricated" anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and published by BuzzFeed News in January.

The dossier claimed that Cohen had "secret meetings with Kremlin officials in August 2016" in Prague and played a "key role in [a] secret Trump campaign/Kremlin relationship" during last year's election.

"I have never engaged with, been paid by, paid for, or conversed with any member of the Russian Federation or anyone else to hack or interfere in the election," Cohen's statement said.

Cohen added that in his "proximity" to Trump as a candidate, he "never saw anything – not a hint of anything — that demonstrated his involvement in Russian interference in our election or any form of Russian collusion."

"I’m certain that the evidence at the conclusion of this investigation will reinforce the fact that there was no collusion between Russia, President Trump or me," Cohen went on.

Ryan told reporters that his client's statement was "factual, it was accurate, it was respectful and we stand behind that statement."

Last month, Cohen offered the House Intelligence Committee a point-by-point rebuttal to more than a dozen allegations contained in the pages of the now infamous dossier, the contents of which have not been verified by Fox News.

In Tuesday’s statement, Cohen called the dossier "shoddily written" and "filled with lies and rumors." He also reiterated his claim that he has never traveled to Prague, where the secret meetings with Kremlin officials were supposedly held.

The dossier has gotten renewed attention ever since a financier testified in July that the company involved in commissioning the document was concurrently working with a Russian attorney on what he called a “smear campaign” against him.

Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital, testified that Natalia Veselnitskaya hired Fusion GPS in that effort. Veselnitskaya is the same attorney who brokered a meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort in June 2016.

In an email to Fox News last month, Veselnitskaya acknowledged that Fusion GPS was hired by “our lawyers” from law firm Baker Hostetler to look into Browder’s background and connections with allegations against her client, but distanced herself from the dossier, which she called "cheap gossip" and "tall tales."

Fusion GPS acknowledged Browder's timeline was correct, but said the two were "separate" projects. The firm's co-founder, Glenn Simpson, met with Senate Judiciary Committee staff behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last month for a transcribed interview. Fusion GPS told Fox News they turned over “more than 40,000 documents” to the committee for their investigation, but a committee spokesperson told Fox News that nearly 7,500 pages were blank.

Trump associate Roger Stone is expected to testify privately before the House Intelligence Committee next week as part of that panel's Russia probe.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Chad Pergram, John Roberts and Jason Donner contributed to this report.