WASHINGTON — The incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday it would be an “impeachable offense” if it’s proved that President Donald Trump directed illegal hush-money payments to women, stressing a need for continuing investigations and a deeper look by Congress into the extent of presidential misconduct.

Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York described the details in prosecutors’ filings Friday in the case of Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as evidence that Trump was “at the center of a massive fraud.” Prosecutors for the first time link Trump to a federal crime of illegal payments to buy the silence of two women during the 2016 campaign, and they lay out previously undisclosed contacts with Russians.

“They would be impeachable offenses,” Nadler said of the illegal payments. “Whether they are important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question, but certainly they’d be impeachable offenses because even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office.”

Mueller has not said when he will complete a report of any findings and it isn’t clear that any such report would be made available to Congress. That would be up to the attorney general. Trump said he would nominate former Attorney General William Barr to the post.