President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen told Congress Wednesday that he briefed Donald Trump Jr. Don John Trump'Tiger King' star Joe Exotic requests pardon from Trump: 'Be my hero please' Zaid Jilani discusses Trump's move to cancel racial sensitivity training at federal agencies Trump International Hotel in Vancouver closes permanently MORE and Ivanka Trump Ivana (Ivanka) Marie TrumpSpecial counsel investigating DeVos for potential Hatch Act violation: report Trump, Biden vie for Minnesota Trump luxury properties have charged US government .1M since inauguration: report MORE on plans to build a Trump property in Moscow during the 2016 campaign.

Cohen said that he briefed President Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE's family on "approximately 10" occasions about the project, which never came to fruition.

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In November, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the property plans within the Trump Organization, acknowledging that the talks extended into June 2016 — six months later than he originally claimed.

Cohen told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday that Trump did not direct him to lie to Congress about the plans but that he did so to protect the president.

Court filings unsealed in November showed that Cohen lied to the House and Senate intelligence committees in 2017 about the length and extent of the Trump Tower discussions within the Trump Organization. He briefed Trump more than three times on the project and also briefed members of Trump’s family, though they were not specifically named.

At the time, prosecutors said Cohen lied in order to “minimize links” between Trump and the project and give the false impression that the discussions ended before the January 2016 Iowa caucus.

Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, acknowledged in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in fall 2017 that the proposal was discussed in 2015 and 2016 but said he was only “peripherally aware” of it.

In his opening remarks Wednesday, Cohen said there were “at least a half-dozen times” between the Iowa caucuses and the following June when he offered Trump updates on the project at the then-candidate’s request.

“He would ask me ‘How’s it going in Russia?’ — referring to the Moscow Tower project,” Cohen said.

The former Trump attorney also said that the president’s personal lawyers “reviewed and edited” his statement to Congress about the timing of the discussions before he delivered it.

“To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project,” Cohen said.

“And so I lied about it, too — because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie,” he said.

The property discussions have been scrutinized by special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) MuellerCNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill's 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE.

While the Moscow proposal did not come to fruition, the discussions about it occurred at a point during the presidential campaign when Trump was making positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin and building better ties with Russia.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has offered varying explanations of Trump’s knowledge of the real estate proposal, but has said that Trump’s answers to Mueller’s questions on the subject acknowledge that the discussions may have occurred as late as November 2016.

Trump has insisted that nothing about the business discussions was improper.