Michael Cohen said one of Trump's top lawyers directed him to lie to Congress

Michael Cohen has told Congress that one of President Donald Trump's lawyers for the Russia investigation case directed him lie to lawmakers about the extent of his negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, criminal false statements for which he has pleaded guilty, new transcripts revealed Monday.

The Washington Post had reported the development before the transcripts were released.

Cohen, who used to serve as Trump's attorney and fixer, has said publicly that he had consulted with Trump's lawyers in crafting the false statement that he had previously given to Congress while he was still working for the president. It claimed that the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations ended in January 2016, when in fact they continued until at least June of that year. Cohen told the House Intelligence Committee that the president's lawyer Jay Sekulow directed him to say the negotiations ended in January.

”Just to be perfectly clear about this, the statement about the Trump Tower negotiations ending in January that was part of your original draft was false, and Mr. Sekulow knew that it was false?” committee Chair Adam Schiff asked Cohen.

“Yes, sir,” said Cohen.

This date is politically significant because it is before the major GOP primary elections began in 2016, putting somewhat more distance between Trump's presidential ambitions and his foreign business adventures.

The legally pertinent question, though, is whether Sekulow knew he was directing Cohen to lie. Cohen is now serving a three-year prison sentence in part for lying to Congress, and if someone else directed him to carry out that crime, they would also be open to criminal charges.

The initial Post report was unclear about whether, in Cohen's account, Sekulow knew the statement was false. But the transcript makes clear that Cohen's claim is that he was directly told to lie.

The Post also pointed out that the Mueller report indicated that investigators had attempted to discuss the Trump legal team's interactions with Cohen, but the lawyers refused and cited attorney-client privilege. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) has begun inquiring into the conduct of the president's lawyers, but they are also citing attorney-client privilege as a reason not to cooperate in this probe.

But Schiff is dubious of these claims.

“The privilege doesn’t apply if it’s being used to conceal a crime or a fraud,” he told the Post. “And if the attorneys were conferring amongst themselves and Mr. Cohen about a false statement they were going to make to our committee, there’s no privilege that protects that kind of conduct.”