Here's why Cohen's latest evidence given to Congress could build the most damning case against Trump yet

President Donald Trump stands accused of a crime — he's been essentially implicated as an unindicted coconspirator by the Southern District of New York — but somehow, much of the country seems blissfully unaware of this fact.

The accusation came from his former attorney Michael Cohen — and affirmed by SDNY prosecutors — when he pleaded guilty to coordinating criminal hush money payments at Trump's direction during the 2016 presidential campaign in violation of campaign finance laws. It was an explosive allegation, one supported by a series of checks Cohen has now made public, and many legal experts believe the only reason Trump himself hasn't faced charges yet is because of Justice Department policy that holds that a sitting president can't be indicted.

However, as important as this allegation is, Cohen may have just provided Congress with evidence of another potential crime that is even more damning.

Multiple outlets have now reported Wednesday that Cohen has given Congress records relating to the Trump Tower Moscow deal he negotiated with Russia during the 2016 election. Trump lied about the deal during the campaign, and Cohen eventually lied about the timeline of the negotiations to Congress in an attempt to minimize the deal, a lie for which he pleaded guilty when Mueller charged him for misleading lawmakers. CNN was specific about the documents Cohen turned over: records showing Trump attorneys' edits to his false and criminal congressional testimony about the deal.

It's not clear what the documents show, but Cohen told Congress in a public hearing last week: "There were changes made, additions — Jay Sekulow, for one," he noted, naming one of Trump's lawyers. "There were several changes that were made including how we were going to handle that message, which was — the message, of course, being— the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive." (Cohen also said Abbe Lowell, Jared Kushner's lawyer, reviewed the statement.)

Since the length of time of the negotiations is specifically what Cohen is guilty of lying about, this assertion seemed to open up the president's team — and perhaps Trump specifically — to legal exposure for suborning perjury.

As CNN noted, Sekulow issued a statement pushing back against Cohen, saying the claim "that attorneys for the president edited or changed his statement to Congress to alter the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations is completely false."

But it should be noted that Sekulow's statement, in a lawyerly way, did not directly contradict Cohen's claim. Cohen said that Trump's attorneys edited the messaging around the timeline, not the timeline itself, which we now know was false. If their edits essentially affirmed the false timeline, however, this could have been a clear sign from Trump's team that Cohen should go forward with the lie.

"This is significant regardless of the actual substance of the edits," said Susan Hennessey, the executive editor of Lawfare. "Editing and returning a document communicates some approval that the edited document be submitted. If Trump knew the content was false, and it appears he did, then that is suborning perjury."

"Prosecutors would have to show that the attorneys knew that the content was false for them to be implicated in suborning perjury," noted former prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "As for Trump, they would have to show that he was personally aware of what his attorneys were doing and directed them to do so."

And the Washington Post reported last week, "A person familiar with Cohen’s account said he cannot say with certainty whether Sekulow, Lowell or other White House advisers knew the discussions about the Trump Tower project extended well into 2016, and thus knew Cohen’s statement was false."

One thing we can say confidently, however, is that Trump knew Cohen's testimony was false. Since it has been revealed that the negotiations lasted through June of 2016, Trump hasn't tried to dispute the claim. And Cohen said he kept Trump regularly updated on the deal.

And while Cohen said in his testimony that the president never directly told him to lie to Congress — an allegation that had been reported in a widely discussed BuzzFeed News report — his actual account of a discussion with Trump and Sekulow seems to indicate that opposite.

“He wanted me to cooperate," Cohen told Congress last week of Trump. "He also wanted just to ensure, I’m making the statement and I said it in my testimony, there is no Russia, there is no collusion, there is no — there is no deal.”

He added: "What he does is, again, ‘Michael, there’s no Russia, there’s no collusion, there’s no involvement, there’s no interference.’

But there was a deal, there was involvement, and there was, as I've argued, collusion. So it looks like Trump wanted Cohen to lie to Congress, and that's what Cohen did.

The evidence matters, though, because if Trump committed a crime, investigators will have to prove it. That's why the documents and edits to Cohen's testimony matter. They could show Trump approving Cohen's false criminal testimony, providing that it can be demonstrated that the president's lawyers were acting with his knowledge and at his direction.

If any investigators are actually making this case, it is almost certainly Mueller's team, which charged Cohen for his lies. And because of the way Cohen framed his testimony, insisting that Trump didn't tell him to lie, he does not appear to be aware that such a case is being contemplated if indeed it is.

Presumably, whether such a case could or could not be made will be answered when Mueller's probe concludes. It could play a key role in an "obstruction of justice" allegation against the president, as Mueller has reportedly been pursuing, or it could be left out of any final report. The question is a vital importance, though, because while the apparent hush money crimes have been effectively brushed off by the GOP — Republican senators have openly said they just don't know much about the issue — it would be much harder for the party to ignore a credible allegation that Trump suborned perjury to cover up his shady business with Russia.