President Donald Trump’s former lawyer pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump’s plans for a real-estate project in Moscow in 2016, taking Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the heart of Trump’s relationship with Russia at the height of the election.
Entering his plea in a hastily convened hearing in New York federal court on Thursday, Michael Cohen said he made false statements to Senate intelligence committee members in August 2017 in order to be consistent with Trump’s repeated public disavowals of any Russian business ties. Under the deal, Cohen agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.