Michael Cohen's guilty plea has brought into focus the possibility other Russia investigation witnesses, including the president's oldest son, also may have lied to Congress.
Cohen originally said he stopped pursuing Trump Tower Moscow in January 2016 when, in fact, that effort continued well into 2016. He also admitted Thursday that he did have high level contact with the Kremlin and that he did keep both he president and his children in the know when it came to his Moscow-related activities.
Donald Trump Jr., in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017, said he only was "peripherally aware" of the deal.
NPR:
Trump Jr. ... told Senate investigators that he wasn't aware that Cohen had reached out to the press secretary for Vladimir Putin as part of his talks with Moscow about a putative new Trump Tower project there.
Cohen had previously told Congress that although he emailed Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, he hadn't heard back, and the discussions with people in Moscow concluded by January 2016.
Cohen then acknowledged in his guilty plea that, in fact, Peskov had responded to him and he and others had continued negotiations about the project until after Trump had become the presumptive GOP nominee.
Trump Jr.'s answers allude to a number of prospective projects; he was asked by Senate investigators about news reports about a Trump Tower Moscow negotiation that took place in 2015 and 2016, which he acknowledged but did not detail.
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The shift in understanding of the events of 2016 provided by Cohen is important for a few reasons:
First, it called into question the Trump family's denials about having business dealings with Russians. Second, it confirmed the Trumps had a channel open with powerful Russians at the same time the Russian government was waging a widespread campaign of "active measures" against the United States.
And third, it put the Russian government and others in Moscow in the position of being able to know, confidentially, the truth about the Trump family's denials about negotiations over the Moscow real estate deals.
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The contrasts between Cohen's statement and Trump Jr's version of events may complicate potential legal problems for Trump Jr. Although seldom prosecuted, lying to Congress is against the law — as evidenced by Cohen's plea.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said he has made referrals to the office of Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller because he said he believed people hadn't given his committee the truth.
“We have made referrals from our committee to the special counsel for prosecution,” Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said at a national security conference in Austin. “In a lot of those cases, those might be tied to lying to us.”
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Most of those interviewed appeared willingly, but “a handful” of those interviews were conducted under subpoena, Burr said, and he suggested that he may have to issue subpoenas again to bring people before the committee.
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Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, said his panel believes “other witnesses were untruthful before our committee.” He would like Mueller to have those transcripts, he said. In particular, Schiff cited Trump adviser Roger Stone as someone whose answers were “far from truthful.”
Donald Trump Jr.'s testimony transcript
Trump Jr.'s 2017 Testimony Conflicts With Cohen's Account Of Russian Talks (NPR)
Senate Intelligence Committee has referred cases of suspected lying to Mueller (WaPo)