Washington Wrap is a weekly look at industry news and Big Law moves shaping the legal business in Washington, D.C. Send news tips and lateral moves to Ryan Lovelace at [email protected].

Close to 16 million viewers tuned in Wednesday to hear Michael Cohen testify before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and there's no question it made for riveting television.

Among the highlights: Cohen, President Donald Trump's convicted, disbarred former lawyer and fixer, making a not-so-veiled reference to Rudolph Giuliani as “Mr. Trump's TV lawyer.”

Giuliani, who has been a personal lawyer and public bulldog for the president for nearly a year, responded to the barb in a series of text messages to The National Law Journal, suggesting Cohen will spend more time in prison as a result of his testimony, and taking aim at Cohen's counsel, Lanny Davis.

“I've tried more cases and argued more appeals than he and his lawyer combined and multiplied by 10,” wrote the former New York City mayor, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and associate U.S. attorney general.

“Look how poorly prepared he was for questioning. He read political diatribes rather than a carefully crafted set of compelling facts and arguments,” Giuliani continued.

Davis, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton and a partner at law firm Davis Goldberg & Galper and public relations firm Trident DMG, was not immediately available to comment. (See update below.)

Giuliani also pointed in a text to Cohen's testimony about seeking a job in the Trump administration and about his foreign contacts. “In all my years of trying cases, I never saw a witness in a high stakes case walk into so much provable perjury,” he wrote.

Congressmen Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the Oversight Committee's ranking Republican, and Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, referred Cohen's testimony for alleged perjury and false statements to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department received the referrals and was reviewing the matter.

Giuliani, meanwhile, predicted that “at least 5 witnesses” will soon come forward to provide evidence of Cohen's additional crimes. Giuliani gave no clues about who the witnesses would be or their relationship to Cohen and Trump.

In addition to his Davis, Cohen had assistance preparing for this week's hearing from Michael Monico of Chicago's Monico & Spevack, who was seated behind Cohen at the hearing along with Davis and his Trident co-founder, PR specialist Eleanor McManus.

UPDATE: In a statement late Friday, Lanny Davis said that focusing on Cohen's interest in a Trump administration job as evidence of perjury or false statements was all part of “the classic Trump tactic we have seen for a long time—divert and disparage rather than confront facts and tell the truth.”

Davis suggested it was the president making false statements, particularly regarding the issuance of checks to Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged tryst with Trump before the 2016 election.

“There can be no doubt issuing these two checks to Mr. Cohen—there were a total of 11—were criminal acts, because they implemented a pre-existing cover-up of the criminal conspiracy under campaign finance laws,” Davis said. “Even Trump TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on TV—oops—that these payments were 'reimbursements' to Mr. Cohen—not as installments under a legal services retainer agreement. Hard to keep up with all these lies. But facts and the truth are stubborn things.”

Law Firm Moves, News, & Notes

Hogan Lovells said this week it added Kevin Sheys and Ed Fishman as partners from Nossaman. The duo is joining Hogan Lovells' burgeoning global transportation practice, with expertise on railroad and public transit regulatory and transactional matters.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer lured Aimen Mir to its offices in Washington, D.C., to launch a practice focused on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Mir is a former top CFIUS official, serving as deputy assistant secretary for investment security at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Comcast said Friday that Thomas Reid would join in April as senior executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of the company. Reid is leaving his post as managing partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell for the role.

Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky said this week it added Kathleen Guith as partner.

Guith is a veteran of the Federal Election Commission, where she was associate general counsel for enforcement. She joined the FEC in 2002 and served in several different capacities in the ensuing decades.

Former Rep. Ed Royce, R-California, will start as policy director at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck on April 1.

The former chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs said he plans to work in Brownstein's government relations department from the firm's offices in Washington, D.C., and Orange County, California.

Greenberg Traurig said this week it elevated three attorneys in D.C., including Dawn Ellison to shareholder and Nicholas Palmer and Shomari Wade to of counsel.

Ellison is a complex commercial litigator, Palmer's practice includes commercial real estate and hospitality, and Wade's world involves government contracts and litigation.

Littler has added Chris Gokturk as principal in its Northern Virginia offices, located in the D.C. suburb of Tysons Corner.

Gokturk is not a lawyer, but an “non-attorney consultant who specializes in helping employers understand their systemic discrimination risks, and also in the development, implementation and defense of compliant and data-driven affirmative action programs,” according to the firm.