(CNN) Congressional Republicans are largely avoiding speculation that the guilty plea by President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen could potentially implicate the President in campaign finance violations.

While Democrats are loudly seizing on the latest development as further evidence of corruption in Trump's inner circle, Republicans have largely taken a cautious approach as the leader of their own party faces the most serious controversy yet of his presidency.

In a New York court on Tuesday, Cohen entered a plea deal and said that "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office" he had kept information that would have been harmful to the candidate and the campaign from becoming public. The plea deal comes after a federal probe of payments by Cohen to help silence women who made claims of sexual encounters or affairs with Trump before the election. The women were not named in the plea, but two women have gone public this year with their allegations.

While Republicans acknowledge the gravity of Cohen's situation, they're not immediately criticizing the President for his alleged role.

Here's what top Republican lawmakers are saying:

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