Midterm’s over…. Mueller starts with Trump bagman Michael Cohen’s 2nd court guilty plea…

President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 about the length and scope of his work on plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

The big picture: This is the first time that Cohen, who pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York in August to campaign finance violations, has been charged in the Mueller investigation. In court, Cohen reportedly said he lied out of loyalty to Trump and to be consistent with the president’s political messaging, per NBC News’ Tom Winter. He has reportedly spent more than 70 hours in interviews with the special counsel, per ABC News.

According to court documents, Mueller charges that Cohen “knowingly and deliberately made the following false representations” in his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee…

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Cohen appeared in federal court in New York in order to enter his guilty plea to one count of making false statements. He has agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation, according to his plea deal, which was released by the special counsel on Thursday.

Cohen is seen by analysts as a significant cooperator in Mueller’s probe, which is examining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow as well as whether the president obstructed justice.

Cohen worked for Trump for more than a decade, at one point serving as executive vice president of the Trump Organization and as Trump’s personal lawyer. The relationship between Trump and his once fiercely loyal personal “fixer” has broken down dramatically over the last several months…..

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In the new criminal charge unveiled Thursday, Cohen admitted that while he told the House and Senate Intelligence Committees last year that consideration of the proposed Moscow “Trump Tower” project ceased by January 2016 — around the time of the Iowa caucuses in the presidential race — the business proposal remained under discussion through “as late as approximately June 2016.”

If the Moscow project in fact remained live through June 2016, it could have been a significant factor in the decision by various Trump aides and family members to attend a June 7, 2016 “Trump Tower” meeting with individuals with close ties to the Russian government. That session has been a key focus of Mueller’s prosecutors and congressional investigators probing potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Trump is not referred to by name in the new charges, but the court filing submitted by Mueller’s team identifies “Individual 1” as the owner of the firm where Cohen worked…..

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Note….

Michael Cohen is the 33rd person to be charged by Robert Mueller and his people….

The idea that the Special Counsel group have been just a ‘fishing expedition’ is ludicrous…

image…theguardian