Today, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen surprised America by pleading guilty to lying to Congress. You can read the complete criminal information here, but the summary is simple. Cohen says he lied when he told Congress that a potential Moscow Trump Tower project ended in January 2016 and that it was not discussed extensively within the Trump companies. In fact, the project didn’t end until June 2016, and Cohen now says he talked about the project with Trump more extensively than he told Congress. He also says he discussed the project with Trump family members.

In addition, Cohen claims that he lied to Congress when said he never agreed to travel to Russia to advance the project and when he said that he didn’t recall any Russian government response when he reached out to the government about the project. In fact, an assistant to Putin’s spokesman emailed with Cohen and spoke to Cohen on the phone.

What to make of all this? I have three initial thoughts.