Plus, a new scandal surrounding a member of the president s cabinet. Did he help give cover to an accused serial pedophile . Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. Shocking news with special Counsel Robert Mueller announcing a Cooperation Agreement with and a new felony charge against the president s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. Cohen making a surprise appearance in a federal court today pleading guilty to lying to congress about President Trumps business dealings in russia, and cohen said he did it to help then candidate donald trump who was telling voters at the time he had no commercial or political ties to russia so cohen repeat that had lie before Congress Testifying today, quote, i made these statements to be consistent with individual ones, political messaging and to be loyal to individual one. Individual one is president donald j. Trump. The Court Documents lay out cohens multiple false statements which center around the proposed trump tower project in moscow. Cohen saying discussions of the project did not end in january 2016 as he had testified to congress but continued at least through june 2016, the same month as that trump tower meeting with the russian lawyer who promised dirt on hillary clinton. June 2016, well after the time that trump was the Presumptive Republican nominee for president. Cohen also says he briefed donald trump and members of the trump family on the project multiple times. President trump this morning told reporters cohen is lying in exchange for leniency, but the president stressed even if he did do the deal that he did not do that would be fine. Its very simple. Hes got himself a big prison sentence, and hes trying to get a much lesser prison sentence by making up a story. Now heres the thing. Even if he was right, it doesnt matter because i was allowed to do whatever i wanted during the campaign. This move by special Counsel Robert Mueller coming after trump submitted his written answers to muellers questions in which he was asked about that very project and given that previous charges against cohen were by the u. S. Attorney in new york city and not special counsel mueller, this also marks the First Official step by Robert Mueller over what President Trump has called his red line, investigating trump business dealings. This also comes after several days of wild trump tweets attacking mueller and his team. Cnns pamela brown joins me now. Pamela, youre learning that the trump tower moscow project is just one of the many topics about which Michael Cohen has spoken with mueller. This is just the tip of the iceberg. A source familiar with Michael Cohen is said to have spent over 70 hours with Robert Muellers team on a variety of topics, including russia. Reporter Michael Cohen dropping a bombshell in federal court pleading guilty to lying to congress about how much the president knew about a potential trump tower project in russia during the campaign out of loyalty toe President Trump. Mr. Cohen will continue to cooperate. The plea agreement says the man who once said hed take a bullet for the president gave information to special Counsel Robert Mueller during more than 70 hours of questioning between august and november. According to course documents, among other things, cohen discussed the status and progress of the moscow project with trump referred to as individual one on more than three occasions, cohen claimed. While cohen told Congress Last fall that the moscow project ended in january of 2016, he now admits discussions about the project lasted as late as approximately june 2016 when trump was the Presumptive Republican nominee. Cohen now admits he made the false statements to protect donald trump and minimize links between the moscow project and individual one and give the false impression that the moscow project ended before the iowa caucus and the very first primary in hopes of limiting the ongoing russia investigations, and he admits he then spoke to candidate trump about traveling to moscow and discussed on multiple occasions traveling to russia to pursue the moscow project with an american associate who said in an email saying our boy could become the president. United states and we can engineer it. Cohen said i made the statements out of loyalty and to be consistent with his political messaging. The president responded by attacking cohen. Hes a weak person and what he is trying to do is get a reduced sentence so shes lying a project that everybody knew about. Reporter but everyone did not know about it. The details of the project were not made public until a New York Times report in february 2016 after the election, and while the president denies the accusations, he also says if the project in moscow did move forward there, would have been no issue. Even if he was right it doesnt matter because i was allowed to do whatever i wanted during the campaign. I was running my business, a lot of Different Things during the campaign. Reporter but the Ranking Members of the house and Senate Intelligence committees this is Michael Cohen. Reporter which cohen admits he lied to see it differently. It means when the president was representing during the campaign he had no business interests in russia, that that wasnt true. If anything the president has said is true, that theres no there there, why are all his closest associates being found guilty of lying about their ties to russia . Reporter and Rudy Giuliani told me on the phone today that there is no contradiction between the written response from the president on this question of trump tower moscow and what Michael Cohen has said, but what is clear here, jake, that this is not over. Muellers team made it clear in Court Documents they find cohen to be truthful based on corroborating evidence and they are also prepared to reveal to the court the extent and scope and nature of the Cooperation Agreement, so we could learn more in Court Documents moving forward, jake. Pamela brown. Let talk about it with the experts. Kaitlan collins, President Trumps defense is threefold, one, Michael Cohen is lying, two, i didnt ultimately do the moscow project and, three, even if i had, that would have been fine. Is he worried . That raises the questions if that is what happened why did he not say that before, why did he say he had no business dealings with congress and why did Michael Cohen lie to congress about it and what the president s legal team is now saying, the president s recollection matches up with Michael Cohen said today, why didnt the president correct Michael Cohens public testimony where he said they did not discuss this any further after january 2016 which is what he had to correct today, which is what he lied to congress about. It the raises all of these questions about this, but i do think the president is concerned about this. He came out to reporters today leaving the white house and unprompted before any of us had even shouted a question he started addressing the situation, started trying to defend it, arguing that he could do business dealings while he was running for president if he wanted to and it was all above board, but he did seem shaken up. Didnt seem like the typical President Trump who you see is defiant. He did seem a little bit concerned that all of this has come out about Michael Cohen. Something interesting that he also said, david urban, he said something along the lines, im paraphrasing, the odds were that i wasnt going to win. I needed to keep my business going. If you look at it. The president was officially the nominee on july 22nd of 2016. But he was the presumptive nominee. I was in cleveland, right, and we were worried that there was going to be a floor fight in the convention, it was going to be ugly. So when the president says hes keeping his day job, i mean, i take it at face value. There were no investments. The president had no investments these are talks about a development deal. It wasnt an investment. The president had the no hold national russia. This was talks, and who knows, i cant tell you what Michael Cohen was doing or peddling or selling overseas, what he was representing, right, i dont know those things. I dont know those facts. What we do know is that he lied. Yeah. And he just had to plead guilty. Thats the only thing we know right now. Cohen says these conversations about the trump tower moscow project continued until june 2016. One month later donald trump tweeted, quote, for the record, i have sero investments in russia, and then take a listen to President Trump in january 2017. I have no dealings with russia. I have no deals in russia. I have no deals that could happen in russia because weve stayed away and i have no loans with russia. I guess depends on what the definition of the word is. And the issue, of course, is not whether he had investments when he was running for president , right . He was taking policy positions as a primary candidate and then as the republican nominee with direct impact on russia, right, so if youre donald trump and all of a sudden youve got a question in your party platform, for example, of do you want to give arms to ukraine or go soft on putin . Well, we know at the convention they went soft on putin. Wait a second, david. Shower. Thats the conflict of interest problem people have been shout begun and Michael Cohen was a very good reason to shout about it. Even Michael Cohen has said only june of 2016, thats the last time may have ended in june of 2016 before the convention. We dont know. The conflict of interest problem im talking about is if you are pursuing a project that is dependant how do you know the project didnt end in june of 2016 . And youre taking campaign positions. How do you know that the last conversation that Michael Cohen had in june of 2016 when the president was this isnt going to work, throws up his hands and leaves. Why are you assuming that its the worst . Just be clear for the folks at home. Even if it was, conversations about the platform at convention are months in the working in a convention, whether its republican or democratic. Not true. It is true. For a typical candidate. Im talking about like you just dont show up at convention with a platform that all of the delegates vote on as no one has seen it before so theres conversations about what goes into the platform. You werent in cleveland. Maybe not as early as seven months before, perhaps a month and a half, two months. I think hes saying it was more ad hoc. I was there. I was there. Were you there . I was the only one at the that i believe was at the convention. I was at the convention. Kaitlan collins, i want to brick in kaitlan here. Take a listen to former Campaign ChairPaul Manafort when asked about Norah Odonnell about the issue of trumps business dealings in july 2016. So to be clear, mr. Trump has no Financial Relationships with anyone russian oligarchs . Thats what he said. Thats obviously what our position is. Kind of an uncomfortable answer, if thats what he said, thats what i said, thats what our position is. Theres a period of like six seconds of silence after that where nora just kind of sits there. Thats a great clip, but i do think thats the question here because as President Trump said today, he said theres a good chance i wouldnt win so why would i give up these opportunities in case i went back into business so if hes operating with that mindset even after he became the nominee, its fine for me to have Michael Cohen speak to russian businessmen. The kremlin. We dont know. Thats the thing. Theres only one person that knows, right. This is the classic donald trump what he does help. Straddles the line. There on camera at a press conference saying i had no business with russia, nothing like that. The question is does it count as a business dealing if youre sending your longtime attorney to russia . He said we stayed away. No deals that could happen in russia because we stayed away. The last six months. They hadnt stayed away. Thats where donald trump straddles the line where he makes statements that are openended and not specific enough that hes lying but it is openended enough to clear him of any wrongdoing. Were also at a point, ryan, that President Trump has clearly lied about this to the public and the press but the question is has he lied about this to the mueller and the evidence is, according to his attorneys, no. Look. I dont even think that this is the worst thing thats happened this week for the president. To mow the worst thing that came out today is the number 70. Thats the number of hours that Michael Cohen sat down with the mueller team, all right. It does not take you 70 hours to say i lied about the trump about the russia deal, right . It takes you maybe five minutes to tell them that one, so i think the big fear for the white house is what else did cohen say in those 70 hours and what is coming down the pike . And thats thats the nub of a lot of the president s ire about crossing that line. As ryan points out. Manafort conviction plea, you know, pleadings, were all about things that happened prior to the campaign, prior to you know, prior to involvement with the president. The president is i think concerned about the fbi going in with unlimited resources, unlimited amount of time and continuing to probe about his businesses a long, long time ago, that Michael Cohen may have been involved with with unfettered budget. One minor fact check. The indictments against manafort said he was committing crimes during his time running during the trump camp. Not necessarily trump related. But it was during the time. But those theres not collusion. We know from the filings that the special prosecutor had no conclusion was brought up. Michael cohen said in court that i made these statements, these lies, to be consistent with individual ones, political messaging and to be loyal to individual one, so hes basically saying President Trump was lying, saying there were no business dealings and therefore i lied to congress to back him up. Yes. Shocker. The president has lied again. This is why its hard for me to take at face value what the president and his allies are saying about anything in relation to russia. Even what the president s lawyers are saying and if im coming from Rudy Giuliani im giving it a side eye because they have been known of to say whatever it is thats advantageous to donald trump. When the 1616th Congress Gets together that the House Intelligence Committee will take up a more serious tone when it comes to this investigation. But you think mueller is not doing good enough job . The house has oversight. Right. And the house has a committee that was supposed to do their Due Diligence and thanks to devin nunes they didnt. The question about nuannez o that committee . Part of the Michael Cohen files mentioned trump family members. Might this spell trouble for donald trump jr. And 13 months behind barsed for an accused serial child rapist. A deal struck by one of the president s cabinet members. Stay with us. Team member, tecky. Newest im tecky. I can do it all. Go ahead, ask it a question. Tecky, can you offer low costs and awardwinning Wealth Management with a satisfaction guarantee, like schwab . Sorry. Tecky cant do that. Schwabbb calling schwab. We dont have a satisfaction guarantee, but we do have tecky im tecky. I ca. Are you getting low costs and awardwinning Wealth Management . If not, talk to schwab. ready to juvederm it . 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