Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress in new deal with Mueller in Trump-Russia probe originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime fixer, former personal attorney and confidant, pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to Congress about a prospective Trump real estate project in Moscow in a new deal with special counsel Robert Mueller.

He appeared in federal court in Manhattan Thursday, where he entered a guilty plea for false statements to Congress in a letter last year about his contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign.

According to court documents, Cohen admitted that he made the misstatements about the “Moscow Project” – the Trump Organization’s efforts to “pursue a branded property in Moscow” in an August 2017 letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees, which were conducting inquiries into alleged collusion and Russian interference.

In court, Cohen admitted that he made the false statements “to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and to be loyal to Individual 1,” Cohen told the judge. Individual 1 was believed to be Trump, based on the description in court documents.

The crime carries up to a 5-year prison sentence and potential $200,000 fine, but sentencing guidelines in the plea deal ranged from zero to six months. He was released without bail.

PHOTO: Michael Cohen walks out of federal court, Nov. 29, 2018, in N.Y. (Julie Jacobson/AP) More

(MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen says family and country, not President Trump, is his 'first loyalty')

This is the second deal Cohen has reached with federal prosecutors and represents a potential blow to Trump, who has been fixated on discounting Mueller and his inquiries into his campaign’s potential collusion with Russia.

Since the first plea on separate campaign finance related charges, Cohen, who once said he’d “take a bullet” for Trump, has provided dozens of hours of interviews to the special counsel’s team, sources said.

Before leaving the White House on Thursday, Trump called Cohen “weak” and a “liar.” His personal attorney, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, issued a statement slamming Cohen as a “proven liar.”

“Michael Cohen is a liar. It's no surprise that Cohen lied to Congress,” Giuliani’s statement reads. “He's a proven liar who is doing everything he can to get out of a long-term prison sentence for serious crimes of bank and tax fraud that had nothing to do with the Trump Organization. … With regard to the hotel proposal in Moscow, the President has been completely open and transparent.”

Outside court, Cohen’s lawyer said his client will “continue to cooperate” with the investigation.

Court documents detail a trio of falsehoods related to a multimillion-dollar Russian real estate deal Cohen pursued on behalf of the Trump Organization while Trump was running for president.

In a public statement released in September 2017 - in advance of his closed sessions on Capitol Hill - Cohen said that he “had nothing to do with any Russian involvement in our electoral process,” and said he “never saw anything – not a hint of anything – that demonstrated [President Trump’s] involvement in Russian interference in our election or any form of Russian collusion.

He also claimed in the statement that the proposal he worked on during the campaign to build a Trump property in Moscow “was solely a real estate deal and nothing more.” The plan was terminated in January of 2016, Cohen said, after it was determined that the project was not viable for business reasons. It [was?] not discussed extensively with others in the Trump Organization, he said, he never agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the project, and he didn’t “recall any Russian government response or contact about the Moscow Project.”

PHOTO: Michael Cohen, personal attorney for President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 19, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters, FILE) More

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