Michael Cohen’s unexpected admission that he lied about key facts during congressional testimony caught observers by surprise. Now there’s been a lot of scrambling to understand what it means and what it signals about the state of the special prosecutor’s investigation.

The key point seems to be Cohen’s admission that he lied in order to keep his testimony in line with President Trump’s narrative. So, without saying so directly, his guilty plea says that the president’s narrative is at odds with the facts.

And although Cohen didn’t say the president asked him to lie, or offered to reward him for doing so, a separate report by CNN said Cohen returned from a visit to Trump’s resort at Mar-a-Lago in May 2018 (at the same time Trump was at the resort) believing that he would be pardoned if he backed up the president’s version of events. The implications of that, if such a deal was offered, are pretty stunning.

Although Trump has tried to simply paint Cohen as a liar who is still lying even while pleading guilty, the folks at the Lawfare Blog make an important point. They stress that we have seen Robert Mueller being extremely careful in his investigation, staying focused on the issue of collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. And, they argue, it is fair the assume that Mueller has gathered substantial corroborating evidence to back up Cohen’s latest version of what took place.

Cohen’s guilty plea has also triggered a reassessment of prior testimony by others which now stands at odds with his version of history. In essence, they all painted a similar picture of what had happened, or hadn’t happened. Now that Cohen has recanted his testimony, the other similar testimony is also subject undermined. Will others now be facing similar criminal charges of lying to Congress?

Lawfare Blog again is a great resource for understanding what’s going on.

If you have the time, I recommend sitting down and listening to The Lawfare Podcast: Special Edition: Michael Cohen’s Trump Tower Moscow Plea. It features several knowledgeable observers sorting through the issues in real time.

And it’s reprised in this article, also published on Thursday: “How to Read Michael Cohen’s Latest Plea and Its Revelations About the Trump Organization”

Then top your reading off with this piece wading into the sentencing memo filed yesterday in Cohen’s case (“There’s a lot going on in Cohen’s sentencing memo“).

I can’t say its enjoyable reading. But it is top notch nonetheless at this critical time.