Even for the Donald Trump era, Tuesday was a particularly shocking day in US politics.
Mr Trump stood accused of conspiring to commit campaign fraud and two of his closest aides faced jail time, after court proceedings delivered a legal and political one-two punch to his embattled presidency.
In a drama that played out simultaneously across two US cities, courts found the former aides guilty of eight charges a piece, stemming from a federal investigation into the 2016 presidential election.
Michael Cohen leaves court on Tuesday. Source: AAP
In New York, Mr Trump's longtime attack-dog fixer, the attorney Michael Cohen, admitted he made pre-election hush payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
And in a sensational twist, Mr Cohen also pointed to the president - or "individual 1" as a co-conspirator - alleging that he acted "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office".
Meanwhile, a jury in Virginia found Mr Trump's one-time campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, guilty on eight counts, including bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to declare foreign bank accounts.
'A day that will go down in history'
Experts have said the Cohen bombshell is particularly bad news for Mr Trump.
"The verdict in the Manafort trial isn't nearly as worrisome to me as the Cohen agreement and the Cohen statement," former Trump adviser Michael Caputo told Politico.
"It's probably the worst thing so far in this whole investigation stage of the presidency."
Neal Katyal a US solicitor general in the Obama administration and now criminal defense attorney told the Washington Post, "this is a very big deal".
"The president of the United States has been directly implicated in federal crimes, and implicated not by some enemy but by his own personal lawyer."
While it is US legal tradition that the president cannot be tried, the allegation, if proven, will only increase calls for his impeachment.
Rudy Giuliani had said his boss Donald Trump will be interviewed by Robert Mueller "over his dead body". Source: AAP
A Republican lawyer close to the White House told Politico that Mr Cohen, "with his unique access to Trump's history of business dealings and scandalous personal entanglements", could give Democrats "fodder for impeachment".
"It's the only excuse they’ll need ... And believe me, they won't need much of an excuse."
Impeachment begins with a vote in Congress' House of Representatives. If a majority votes in favour of impeachment, the case moves to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict and remove a president.
Both of these chambers are controlled by Republicans, but this could change at the November midterm elections.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi tweeted the day's events showed "further evidence of the rampant #CultureOfCorruption & criminality" in the Trump inner circle.
CNN's legal analyst was perhaps the bluntest, saying, "Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump's presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed".
Giuliani: No allegation of any wrongdoing
In a statement to US media, Mr Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, reacting to Mr Cohen's plea, said: "there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr Cohen."
But Mr Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis sees things differently.
"This is Michael fulfilling his promise ... to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump," Mr Davis said.
"Today, he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," the lawyer said.
"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?”
Additional reporting: Nick Baker
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