Cohen spoke with White House staff about false statements to Congress

Michael Cohen's lawyer stated in a Friday court filing that Cohen "remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel" to President Trump — called "Client-1" in the document — while he was preparing inaccurate statements to Congress about Russian contacts.

The big picture: Cohen's new guilty plea is the first time that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has "come alive with pre-presidential actions and entanglements by Trump himself," as previously reported by Axios' Mike Allen. Cohen's lawyer says in the filing that Cohen and Trump "discussed possible travel to Russia in the summer of 2016, and Michael took steps to clear dates for such travel." It also says that Cohen kept Trump "apprised" of conversations he had with the assistant of a Kremlin official about the Moscow tower project.