As the government shutdown neared the one-month mark, the political landscape shifted under Washington’s feet Thursday night, dramatically and perhaps permanently altering the path of our nation’s politics. BuzzFeed’s duo of Russia probe reporters posted a blockbuster report that President Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow Project.

The allegation, which Buzzfeed sourced to two federal law enforcement officials, simultaneously adds new information to both the “collusion” and “obstruction” sides of the Russia probe. The idea that the president of the United States directed his personal attorney to lie to legislators about his attempt to complete a hundred-million-dollar deal with Vladimir Putin in the midst of the presidential campaign is, in short, as big as it gets.

As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island and a former prosecutor, laid out, the accusation at the core of the BuzzFeed report constitutes at least four potential felonies: “criminal obstruction of justice (18 U.S.C. 1505, 1512), subornation of perjury (18 U.S.C. 1622), conspiracy (18 U.S.C. 371), and likely aiding and abetting perjury (18 U.S.C. 2).” Those phrases also meant something specific to students of recent political history: Suborning perjury was part of the articles of impeachment that targeted both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr took the unusual step of refuting Buzzfeed's story with what appears to be a carefully worded statement. "BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate."

While we’ll be unpacking the implications of the apparent revelation for days to come, there are six aspects of the new report which, if true, make clear the scale of the political peril facing the president as of Friday morning:

1. Mueller has the receipts. According to Buzzfeed, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have more than Cohen’s word to support the claim. In fact, the lead instead originated with documents and witnesses inside the Trump Organization, a great sign of how much visibility Mueller has into the private business world of Donald Trump pre-presidency.

Remember that Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg received immunity from prosecutors and is cooperating. To have both your company's accountant and your personal fixer—Cohen—turn on you usually is criminally fatal. This report from BuzzFeed, as rich in detail as it is, probably represents just the tip of the iceberg of Mueller’s knowledge. Every single indictment and court filing from Mueller has been more detailed, more knowledgeable, and better informed than we imagined. And this is just one of at least 17 investigations targeting the president's circle right now, run by at least seven different sets of prosecutors. The potential criminal liability remains enormous.

2. The politics just changed in a big way. Any investigation that targets the president of the United States is more a political question than a criminal question. The ultimate judge and jury would almost certainly be Congress or the voters, either in an impeachment trial or a reelection bid.

The president's family is potentially in lots of legal trouble.

These allegations are about lying to Congress, which makes it harder for Congress to brush them away—and given the new Democratic majority in the House, they’re certainly not inclined to. Democrats in Congress were quick out of the gate hinting at the “I” word (which coincidentally also appears on the cover of the latest issue of The Atlantic). The chair of the House Judiciary Committee, where impeachment articles would begin, moved further than he has before in discussing the seriousness of the accusation.