An agitated Trump tried to play down his ex-aide’s deal with prosecutors – but experts call it ‘potentially very significant’

A deal announced on Thursday between Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, and federal prosecutors has left the president and his family vulnerable to new legal hazards and could represent one of the most significant advances so far in the work of special counsel Robert Mueller, legal analysts said.

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Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about a deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf to build a Trump tower in Moscow.

Court documents revealed Cohen was in contact with top Kremlin officials about the prospective tower; that Trump was closer to the negotiations than previously acknowledged; and that the deal was alive as late as June 2016 – six months longer than Cohen told Congress.

The court filing appeared to expose multiple and repeated public lies by Trump about his links to Russia. “I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away,” Trump said at a press conference during the presidential transition. “I have no deals … because I think that would be a conflict.”

Confronted with the contradiction outside the presidential helicopter on Thursday morning, a visibly agitated Trump said “this deal was a very public deal – everybody knows about this deal”, then denied there was ever a deal, then said if there had been a deal it would have been no problem.

“This was a deal that didn’t happen,” Trump said. “That was no deal. If you look – this was an option. To my way of thinking, it was an option that we decided not to do.”

Former US attorney Barb McQuade called the Cohen deal “potentially very significant”, pointing out that in court documents, Cohen admitted to lying to Congress “in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations”.

Perhaps the most significant issue I’ve seen raised: does Cohen contradict Trump’s recent written answers to Mueller? Preet Bharara

McQuade said: “That says to me that – you know people only lie and take a risk like that when the consequences of telling the truth are even worse. So what would be so bad about it? Certainly the mere fact that they were negotiating a building in Russia was not in any way illegal, so what more was he trying to hide there?”

Trump could be legally vulnerable on a number of fronts, analysts said. Last summer, Mueller charged Russian hackers with a “conspiracy to defraud the United States” by tampering with the 2016 election; it is possible that a Trump associate or family member could at some point be charged as a co-conspirator.

“Michael Cohen is likely someone to be a trusted confidant who knows about these things and has now agreed to cooperate about them,” said McQuade. “This suggests that his cooperation is about the heart of the Mueller investigation and that is collusion with Russia.”

Other analysts said that the pattern of lying by former Trump aides about the campaign’s Russia ties – at least seven former Trump aides and associates have either been charged with making false statements or face such charges – could mean trouble for Trump, if the president were shown to have directed it.

“There are an awful lot of Trump underlings now caught lying to Congress and others about Russia and Trump specifically,” tweeted Neal Katyal, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “Why? At whose direction? Who stood to gain from the lies?”

Play Video 1:51 Trump: 'Michael Cohen is weak and trying to get a reduced sentence' – video

Former US attorney Preet Bharara was one of many to point out that just last week, Trump submitted written answers to questions from Mueller, reportedly including questions about a potential real estate deal in Moscow.

“This is perhaps the most significant issue I’ve seen raised so far: does Cohen contradict Trump’s recent written answers to Mueller specifically on the Moscow Trump Tower project,” Bharara tweeted. “If so and Cohen’s version is corroborated, Trump is guilty of a false statement.”

The Cohen deal could pose difficulties for Trump’s family members, too. Court documents referring to Trump as “Individual 1” said Cohen “briefed family members of Individual 1 within the Company about the [Moscow] project”, and that “COHEN agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project and took steps in contemplation of Individual 1’s possible travel to Russia.”

If Donald Trump Jr was part of those conversations, he could be in fresh trouble. In May, Trump Jr told the Senate he “wasn’t involved” with the Moscow deal, and denied awareness that Cohen had contacted the Kremlin to negotiate the deal.

But the brazen nature of Trump’s public lying could represent the ultimate hazard for the president, whose party suffered huge losses in elections earlier this month and who himself comes up for re-election in 2020.

Andy Wright, a law professor and founding editor of the Just Security blog, called the Cohen news a “bombshell” development.

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He said: “The president was lying to the American people at a critical time during the vetting of his candidacy about whether or not he was pursuing a deal with Russia. Before we get to the law, that’s very troubling.

“I still think that those fundamental dynamics about lying to American people apply.

“The legal process is also incredibly important, but at the end of the day it’s our democracy that matters more than whether Donald Trump gets punished.”