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Michael Cohen: What is the latest scandal and how does it impact Donald Trump?

Michael Cohen, a once loyal confidante of the president turned man who has done a plea deal over hush money payments made to two women on the eve of the election, is back in the news.

Two months before he is due to show up to prison to serve a three-year sentence as part of the deal in which he admitted arranging payments to Stormy Daniels and former model Karen McDougal – a breach of campaign finance laws – the president’s former personal lawyer is at the centre of new allegations; that he rigged an online poll in Donald Trump’s favour before the election, and that he lied to Congress about the extent of Trump’s dealings with Russia to set develop a Moscow Trump Tower.

BuzzFeed News set off a series of reverberations, when it reported that according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation, Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the negotiations. He said he also supported a plan hatched by Cohen to visit Moscow to meet Vladmir Putin. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

The revelations have resulted in a call for action from Democrats and others. California congressman Adam Schiff said congress would “do what’s necessary” to find out if the contents of the report were true.

“The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date,” he told reporters.