President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress over the ongoing Russia investigation in connection with a Moscow real-estate deal and Russian contacts pursued during the 2016 election.
As Democrats decried the plea as evidence that Trump’s associates were willing to lie about his business dealings, Trump sought to deflect mounting political pressure in an incoming House of Representatives under Democrat control by accusing Cohen of lying to get a reduced sentence.
The 52-year-old Cohen, who once famously said he would take a bullet for the Republican billionaire, admitted one count of making false statements relating to an already known prospective real-estate deal in court.
He exited the federal court in Manhattan, ignoring questions from reporters and got wordlessly into the back of a vehicle before being driven away.
The Trump Tower deal — which never got off the ground — has been a focus of an investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign, The New York Times reported.
Cohen admitted to making “false, fictitious and fraudulent” written testimony to Congress in August 2017 in connection with the project.
He lied to suggest that the project was shelved in January 2016 — before the first caucus and primary voting began in the presidential election — to downplay links between the deal and unnamed associates and in the hope of limiting the Russia investigation, according to court documents.
Contrary to his original testimony, the project was discussed multiple times within the company — beyond January 2016 — and with efforts to obtain Russian governmental approval being discussed as late as June of that year.