Michael Cohen: Four things we learnt from latest guilty plea of Trump’s former lawyer

The lawyer faces up to five years in prison on other charges

Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen has entered another guilty plea in the federal Russia investigation, this time for lying to Congress.

Cohen has admitted to not divulging details about a real estate project in Moscow that was under consideration during the 2016 US election, per court documents.

The lawyer had spoken to Congress in August 2017 and had told them discussion about the project had ended in January 2016, months before Mr Trump became the Republican nominee.

However, court documents filed by Mr Mueller’s team show Mr Cohen discussed it “as late as approximately June 2016” and done so directly with the president multiple times.

He also said, according to the filing in federal district court, he had spoken with the Trump family and “agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project and took steps in contemplation of Individual 1’s possible travel to Russia.”

“Individual 1” in the court filing refers to the president.

Here is what else we know about Cohen’s plea and what it means for the president:

A possible reduced sentence

Cohen possibly faces several years in prison for his other guilty pleas, entered in August 2018, for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and other banking-related crimes.

Those charges were brought by the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, not Mr Mueller.

But, legal experts have said he may have divulged the latest information to reduce the up to five years in prison he faces at his 12 December sentencing in that case.

The latest plea marks the first time Mr Mueller has charged Mr Cohen, after several rounds of questioning with the FBI team and a raid on his home.

The 52-year-old has already admitted to making payments to two women - Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal - ahead of the election who alleged to have had affairs with Mr Trump.

The beleaguered lawyer said he paid nearly $130,000 of his own money just before the November 2016 election to Ms Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, as part of a nondisclosure agreement after the president and Ms Daniels had an affair in 2006.

Mr Trump has denied the affair and Mr Cohen had repeatedly said that what he did was legal.

However, he later said he had arranged for the payments, essentially “hush money” to keep quiet about the alleged liaisons, at the direction of the president.
Mr Trump has denied he directed his lawyer to do that.

“I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” he noted in court at the time.

Mr Cohen had also pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion and fraud for mismanagement of his personal funds and money related to the management of taxi medallions in New York City, commodities which can cost several hundred thousand dollars.

The Trump Tower meeting is key

What is particularly revealing about Mr Cohen’s admission is the timing of his discussions with Mr Trump and the family about the so-called “Moscow project” he referenced in the court documents.

On 9 June 2016, a meeting took place between the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. At first, the President's eldest son said the meeting with her was about the Magnitsky Act, a US law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers, according to the New York Times.

However, he changed his statement on 9 July 2017 to say that he took the meeting at the request of a contact from the the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant that took place in Moscow.

Mr Trump Jr said "the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms Clinton."

Mr Trump Jr claimed Ms Veselnitskaya did not share any pertinent information, however it is unclear if that is true.

The president defended his son publicly and chalked it up to merely “opposition research”. He recently said in a statement to Mr Mueller he was not aware of the meeting before it took place.

At that point, Mr Trump was still weeks away from being officially named the Republican nominee, but competition between he and Ms Clinton had already turned fierce.

Mr Trump was a private citizen during the presidential campaign

In the wake of Cohen’s guilty plea, the president addressed journalists ahead of his trip to the G20 summit in Argentina.

The president said Cohen was simply lying about the discussions regarding the real estate project which “everybody knew about” but was “an option I decided not to do”.

However, he also noted: “There would be nothing wrong if I did” invest in the Trump-branded real estate property in Moscow.

Mr Trump was correct in his assessment that he was a private citizen up until he was officially named the Republican nominee in July 2016, saying: “I often joke about the fact that I campaigned and simultaneously ran a business”.

However, critics have pointed out he may be hypocritical with that statement.

In July 2016, he tweeted: “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia” but was also praising Russian President Vladimir Putin as well and not disclosing he had allegedly been discussing this real estate deal at the same time.

However, the president maintained he “wasn’t trying to hide anything” and “this is a deal that didn’t happen”.

The president calls his former lawyer a “weak person”

At one Cohen had said he would “take a bullet” for his former employer, but the tune has changed dramatically between the pair.

Even in the latest guilty plea he said in court: “I made these statements [to Congress in August 2017] to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and to be loyal to Individual 1”.

Mr Trump called Cohen “a weak person” and “not a very smart person,” while also saying he lied about the real estate deal.

Cohen had worked for the Trump Organisation and then the president himself for more than a decade, but the president indicated it was simply because the lawyer had “done a favour” for the president “a long time ago”.

However, after his August 2018 guilty plea Cohen said he wanted to clear his conscience about the president and protect his family.

He went as far as urging voters to cast ballots for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, saying it “might be the most important vote in our lifetime.”

It is unclear what kind of sentence Cohen will face now with the latest charges.