Read: Three remarkable things about Michael Cohen’s plea

But Cohen also indicates that as he prepared his congressional testimony, he was in “close and regular contact” with the White House staff and the president’s lawyers. This passage would suggest communications about his testimony, which—it is reasonably assumed—would have included discussion of its content. And it would be hard, indeed well-nigh impossible, to believe that the president’s team did not share with Trump what it learned. In fact, Trump’s lawyers had an obligation to advise him of what they knew.

At the time, Cohen was not only speaking on an issue of intense concern to the president: Cohen’s lawyers acknowledge that at the time he was asked to testify before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, he “was serving as personal attorney to the President.” Did Cohen enter into these discussions in the belief that he had an obligation to share information about his testimony—and did he then come away with the understanding on both sides that he would give testimony that all knew to be untrue?

Certainly, whatever transpired in these discussions, they did not deter Cohen from lying. As Trump’s loyal lawyer and friend, he would presumably have followed instruction or advice to testify truthfully. It would have been by far the better course for him. To have told the truth about the business negotiations would not have constituted, in and of itself, the admission of a crime, but a lie opened up the legal jeopardy he could have avoided. Still he lied, and it was a lie told to Congress in the course of an investigation.

Read: What Michael Cohen’s guilty plea means for Trump

The full facts of the exchanges between Cohen, and Trump’s staff and lawyers—and the further question of what the president knew and when—will clarify whether these lies would subject individuals other than Cohen, including the president, to legal liability. The resolution of the legal question does not settle the matter for the president if Trump was aware that his personal lawyer and close associate was planning to lie to Congress and he either acquiesced, perhaps signaling through agents and lawyers his approval of this course of action, or took no action to discourage it.

This is not the first time a question has arisen about the president’s direction, encouragement, or tolerance of lying by another to undermine a lawful investigation. When former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn is sentenced, the proceedings may make public more information about whether the president knew about his lies to the FBI concerning his discussions of sanctions with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. By January 28, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates advised the White House counsel that there was a problem with Flynn’s FBI interview. Sean Spicer later told the press that the president was “immediately informed of the situation.”