President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, surprised the political world early Thursday with the announcement that he was pleading guilty to lying to Congress.

Cohen made a surprise appearance in a New York courtroom around 9 a.m. and began entering the plea. According to reports, Cohen admitted to making false statements in 2017 to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow because he wanted to be consistent with Trump's "political message."

In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to other federal charges involving his taxi businesses and bank fraud. However, none of those were related to Trump. His guilty plea Thursday is unique, as it is directly related to a plea deal with Mueller's team.

Trump has regularly called Mueller's investigation an unfair political "witch hunt." In a press conference before leaving for the G20 conference, Trump accused Cohen of lying to protect his own skin.

"There may be a non-Russian conspiracy [explanation] for the lies [Cohen] told," Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Fox News. Napolitano explained it could be as simple as a business deal early in the campaign that went bad, and Cohen was concerned about the political optics when he lied to Congress.