Michael Cohen‘s latest guilty plea and admission that he lied about details of Donald Trump‘s business dealings with Russia during his presidential campaign may not be the ultimate evidence of collusion, but it’s an important step towards Special Counsel Robert Mueller figuring out everything that was going on, according to Law&Crime founder Dan Abrams.
Abrams, the chief legal analyst for ABC News, discussed these latest developments Friday on “Good Morning America.”
“We’ve talked about this before, the idea that this is a piece of the puzzle, this isn’t proof of collusion,” Abrams said. “The question becomes ‘Why did the president, if Cohen’s telling the truth, want to move the date back, from June to January?’ Why is that six month period so important?”
Abrams described how so much of the controversy surrounding allegations of Russian election interference and Trump campaign collusion involves events that took place in June, which is when Cohen now says negotiations for a Trump real estate deal in Moscow were still taking place.
“He didn’t want to be seen as talking to Russia during the period right when you got all the hacking, you got the meeting with Don Jr.,” Abrams said. “This is the heart of the contact, and the problems with the Russians in happening in June.”
Abrams said that this is just latest in a series of lies that Mueller has uncovered. Others connected to the campaign, including Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, were also convicted of providing false statements.
“Mueller’s job is to put them all together, Abrams said. “Why is everyone seemingly distancing themselves from either conversations they had, meetings, et cetera, with Russians? What was going on?”
Another effect of Cohen’s plea, Abrams said, is how it must make Trump feel. Cohen was once his fixer and confidante. He’s now exposing details of Trump’s business dealings that had been covered up.
“That’s gotta be unnerving,” Abrams said.
[Image via screengrab]