Michael Cohen plea deal: What former Trump lawyer admitted to Mueller - and what it could mean for the president

The Michael Cohen plea deal was announced as Donald Trump prepared for the G20 summit in Argentina (EPA)

Michael Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for Donald Trump. Now the president’s former personal lawyer has admitted lying to Congress about a plan to build a Trump Tower in the Russian capital, and that he did so “out of loyalty” to Mr Trump.

But what do Cohen’s lies mean for Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign? And how does it affect Mr Trump himself?

The “Moscow Project” goes back as far as 1996 when the future president visited the Russian capital to check out building sites. Although the idea fell through, Mr Trump told Playboy magazine that “Moscow is going to be huge”.

Further discussions were held with Russian businessmen in 2013, during Mr Trump’s visit to Moscow as owner of the Miss Universe pageant, and in October 2015, when Cohen was involved in negotiating a potential deal with Russian real estate developer Andrey Rozov.

When that failed, Cohen emailed a Russian official, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in January 2016 to try and get the project off the ground.

1. What did Cohen admit?

   Cohen admitted he lied when he told Congress that the Moscow Trump Tower project collapsed by the end of January 2016 - before the first major contests to select the presidential candidates.

   He now says it did not end until June 2016, by which point Donald Trump was the only Republican candidate left in the race (he was formally confirmed in July 2016).

   Cohen also lied about the extent of his discussions with Mr Trump and other family members about the project. He told Congress that Mr Trump did not contact anyone about the proposal "other than me on three occasions" and was not involved in the decision to terminate it. He said he never considered asking Mr Trump to travel to Russia.

   He now admits that he discussed the project with Mr Trump on more than three occasions and briefed Trump family members about it. He also asked Mr Trump about travelling to Russia and talked about arrangements for the trip with "Individual 2", who is believed to be Felix Sater, a Russian-born real-estate developer, between May and June 2016. Cohen proposed Mr Trump's visit to Russia could happen once he became the Republican nominee.

   A further lie involved Cohen's contact with the Russian government. He told Congress he did not recall any response to his email to a Russian official but now admits he received a response from an assistant to the Russian official and discussed the Moscow project over the phone in January 2016.

2. Why did Cohen lie to Congress?

   According to the plea document, Cohen made the false statements to minimise links between Donald Trump and the Moscow project and give the false impression that the project ended before the Iowa Caucus and the first primary in early February 2016.

   Cohen added: "I made these statements to be consistent with [Trump's] political messaging and out of loyalty to [Trump]."

3. Why is this significant for Donald Trump?

   The new information reveals that the Moscow project was being pursued with Russian officials while Mr Trump was forging ahead in the race to become Republican presidential candidate.

   At the same time he was repeatedly complimenting the Russian president, describing President Putin as "brilliant" (January 2016) a "strong leader" (March 2016) and saying that "we're going to have a great relationship with Putin and Russia" (April 2016).

   The conflict of interest is obvious. Mr Trump stood to make millions of dollars in profit if the deal went through and his team were actively involved in negotiations with officials close to the Russian president to make it happen. Meanwhile Russia was involved in efforts to influence the presidential election in Mr Trump's favour, according to the US intelligence community.

   Cohen's admissions will also force a reassessment of earlier reports and conclusions about the links between Russia and the Trump campaign. One example is Mr Peskov's version of events: in his initial statement in August 2017 he said that his office did not reply to Cohen's email but on Thursday he admitted that they did call Mr Cohen back to explain "that we have nothing to do with construction issues in the City of Moscow".

   The conclusion of the House report that there was no evidence of collusion was also partly based on Cohen's lie to Congress that no government officials were involved in the Moscow project.

   It would seem unlikely that the president was unaware that Cohen had lied to Congress. As former prosecutor Ken White said: “The conclusion that the President of the United States knew that his personal counsel was repeatedly lying to the Congress of the United States about the President’s business is inescapable under these circumstances.”

   Despite Mr Trump's protestations, Cohen's admissions do not support his argument that the Mueller investigation is a baseless "witch hunt".

4. How has Donald Trump responded?

   Mr Trump, who insisted repeatedly throughout the campaign that he had no business dealings in Russia, has called Michael Cohen a liar while insisting that he would have done nothing wrong even if the Moscow project had gone ahead.

   “He is a weak person... Michael Cohen is lying and he’s trying to get a reduced sentence for things that have nothing to do with me," the president said. “I decided ultimately not to do it. There would’ve been nothing wrong if I did do it."

   Since the plea deal was announced, Mr Trump has continued to describe the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt" and tweeted that his business dealings were "very legal and very cool". He said he "lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn't do the project."

5. What could happen now?

   The Cohen admissions can be seen as a further indication that the Mueller investigation is slowly building up a case against more important figures in the Trump campaign. For starters, who else has lied?

   One obvious step would be to compare the new information against the answers submitted by the president to the Mueller investigation last week. If it could be proved that his responses were lies then he would potentially face charges of making false statements.

   This is unlikely, however, given his legal team would have been well aware of this risk. Then again, one of his lawyers is Rudy Giuliani, the former New York Mayor.

   Mr Giuliani claimed that there is "no contradiction" between Cohen's admissions and the president's testimony to Mr Mueller's team. "Neither of the two versions from Michael Cohen creates a problem for what the President testified."

   Cohen's admissions also pave the way for further "bombshell" revelations. It may be that Cohen has even more to share, beyond the proposed Moscow Trump Tower negotiations. He will be aware of the dangers of concealing the truth, given that Mr Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has already been caught out telling a series of lies to investigators in breach of his cooperation agreement.

   Was Cohen told to lie to Congress by someone else in the Trump campaign? On this, the plea agreement is silent, but charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice are one possibility.

   Finally, if the president feels threatened by the direction of the investigation, he may decide to take action to stop it.

   While Robert Mueller has been slowly building up momentum, Mr Trump has been chipping away at the structure supporting the FBI special counsel. This month he secured the resignation of attorney general Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from oversight of the investigation into Russian interference, and appointed Matthew Whitaker, who has been openly critical of the probe.

   Legislation to protect the investigation has so far been blocked by Republicans in the Senate but may form part of the negotiations over the spending bill which has to be passed by 7 December to avert a government shutdown.

   Mr Trump has said he is "totally willing" to let a shutdown happen. What else he willing to do will remain a source of some speculation.