First read through the Cohen plea. Lets see what looks interesting. Obviously individual 1 is Trump. documentcloud.org/documents/5331… 
Oh, that's interesting. The Senate Select Committee was looking at collusion with political campaigns. Plural, not just one campaign, that is a most interesting way to phrase that if the CI case was not probing Hillary's campaign too...
The Mueller indictment of Cohen also says the House Permanent Select Committee was investigating "political campaigns" plural.
So Cohen send the Congress a 2 page letter summarizing the Trump Russia Casino deal. A deal that started with an FBI sting against a Russsian spy Evgeni Buryakov & VEB bank by three FBI assets pretending they wanted to build a casino in Russia.
Bolded is the alleged false statement, that what started out as the FBI casino sting project ended in January of 2016. To the best of Cohen's knowledge, Trump & his family didn't know about the casino collusion project.
Seems Individual 2, FBI informant Felix Sater, pressured Cohen to travel to Russia to finalize the deal. Cohen is said to have lied about agreeing to travel & considering asking Trump to travel to Moscow.
Sater asked Cohen to email the Press Secretary for Vladimir Putin in January 2016. He says he does not recall any response of contact from the Russian govt. but that the permission to move ahead with the project was never given. Cohen says he abandoned the project 2 weeks later.
The Special Counsel's claim is that Cohen lied about the project to minimize the links of Trump & Sater to the Moscow Project. Which began with an FBI sting in which 3 individuals, like the same 3, were working undercover for the FBI.
Specifics on the lies: Cohen continued to discuss the Moscow Project until June of 2016. Talked to Trump more than the 3 times he claimed and also talked to Trump family members about the Russian Casino project.
Cohen also considered traveling to Russia & asked Trump & a campaign official about a business trip to Russia. Again linked to the project that started as an FBI casino sting against Russia's VEB bank.
Cohen also considered going to Russia to meet prior to the RNC convention & having Trump go after the Convention. This was May 4th.
They attempt to arrange the meeting w Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry S Peskov during June 2016 during a Russian economic conference. With a possible meeting with Putin or PM Medvedev.
At the last minute, Cohen informed Sater at Trump HQ that he would not be going to Moscow. That was right as the Russian hacking stories & Guccifer 2.0 were breaking.
Seems Cohen had continued his efforts to get Russian approval for the deal (pay the right bribes?) & wanted to speak to a high official that spoke English.
Cohen emailed Sater & told him he had news about Putin, that the Russians had called today. Nothing in here undermines the fact that this began as, & likely continued as an FBI covert operation the entire time. Only that Cohen didn't tell the truth about the operation to Congress
It was likely to be a SAP level program, it would have been illegal for Cohen to tell members of Congress not read in on the program about it. However, unless he had permission to lie about it from the FBI, he would have been required to not answer the questions rather than lie.
Then we have the plea agreement. Looks like standard stuff, Cohen agrees he told those lies, Mueller agrees to not prosecute him for any additional lies he told Congress. Were there more? documentcloud.org/documents/5331…
So this certainly appears to represent a factual finding that Cohen lied to both Congressional Committees in August & September 2017 to conceal or minimize the existence of deal that at least started as an FBI sting against the Russians that grew out of the Buryakov case.
So this doesn't really move the needle on where we are at in the investigation, other than to rebut Cohen's Congressional Testimony that the FBI's Casino Sting stopped in January 2016 & did not seriously involve @realDonaldTrump nor his family members.
I guess that is a necessary step toward the reveal that the FBI's sting, (with or without the FBI's permission) continued after the campaign began in January 2016. The only questions are who was still working for the FBI during the Jan-June time frame. And which part of the FBI?
I want to add this subthread to the main thread spurredby the comment of @meangeneone1 about the precedent this sets for others who lied to Congress about covert or classified cases.
Which may pose a major issue with Obama officials who lied about covert programs to Congress, on the grounds that Congress wasn't read in on the programs. Which may include anyone who lied about Crossfire Hurricane, on the grounds they were ordered to conceal National Security
information based on the orders Obama gave to Sally Yates & James Comey on 1/5/17 as documented by Susan Rice's CYA email dated 1/20/17. So if Cohen is a felon for lying to Congress to conceal a covert operation, so is anyone who lied about Crossfire Hurricane or any previous ops
Which brings us back to a little statement by Bruce Ohr to Chris Steele when Yates was fired. That if he had to leave too, Bruce would provide him a DOJ or FBI contacts that was "read in" on the case. Meaning his involvement was part of a classified & official action by the DOJ.
Not the lone actions of a single rogue employee. We are getting close.
