There's More to the Michael Cohen Story

[deminks]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/there-s-more-to-the-michael-cohen-story

I was intrigued to learn a few days ago that President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, once founded an ethanol business in Ukraine. It's referred to as a family business. So presumably he set it up with relatives of his wife, who is Ukrainian. This isn't any big scoop I uncovered with my masterly reporting skills. It's referenced right in one of the biggest stories of the last week in The New York Times, the one about Cohen, Felix Sater and Andrii V. Artemenko, the renegade Ukrainian MP who pitched Cohen (and, he hoped, Mike Flynn and Donald Trump) on his 'peace plan' for Russia and Ukraine and who is now being investigated by the government of Ukraine for treason.

Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong or suspicious about setting up a business in the energy sector in Ukraine. But it did make me see Cohen's role in all of this in something of a new light. In most of the coverage of Cohen's not infrequent appearances in the Russia/Trump saga, he is presented as a blunt-affect New York City lawyer who seldom makes it east of Queens. That's one of the things that has always made his cameos in these stories a bit odd and hard to figure. But if he's set up a family business in Ukraine, it seems like this terrain and the cast of characters and politics might not be so foreign to him after all.

(snip)

In any case, the article is a backgrounder on Artemenko, pivoting off the original story in the Times. It goes into various details about Artemenko's background. Then it gets to Cohen. In an interview at Strana.ua, he says that while Sater is a recent acquaintance, he's known Cohen since back when Cohen was setting up the ethanol business in Ukraine. So at least according to to Artemenko, he and Cohen have known each other for some time. This wasn't just a courtesy meeting Cohen took with a stranger as a favor to Sater.

And then there's this.

Artemenko told Strana.ua that this wasn't the first time they'd talked about the "peace plan." He says that he was discussing the peace plan with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”

So at least according to Artemenko, discussions about the "peace plan" go back to the first half of 2016.

(end snip)

So more than one meeting, possibly. And much earlier in the campaign.

drip drip drip

[Dawson Leery]

1. kick

[triron]

2. More dots to connect

[triron]

3. Please send this to Rachel at trms

[Lucinda]

4. Thank you! Won't be able to read until tomorrow, but I'll kick for you!

[Mc Mike]

5. Pro-dRumpf Jewish wiseguy with Russian business ties.

Like Sater. And this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn

"Boris Epshteyn (born 1982) is a Russian-born American Republican political strategist, investment banker, and attorney. He was a senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President of the United States...

Following his graduation from law school, Epshteyn was part of the Finance practice of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy New York. He worked on securities transactions, private placements, and bank finance.
...
Epshteyn was Managing Director of Business and Legal Affairs at the boutique investment bank West America Securities Corporation. He is Managing Director of Business and Legal Affairs for investment banking firm TGP Securities.[6] In October 2013, Epshteyn moderated a panel at the investment conference "Invest in Moscow!" The panel was composed mainly of Moscow city government officials, including Sergey Cheremin, a city minister who heads Moscow’s foreign economic and international relations department.
...
In September 2016, the media watchdog organization Media Matters for America criticized CNN, Fox News, and PBS for failing to disclose Epshteyn's "financial ties to the former Soviet Union, which include consulting through Strategy International LLC for 'entities doing business in Eastern Europe' and moderating a Russian-sponsored conference on 'investment opportunities in Moscow.'" "

[Vinca]

6. I didn't think Cohen was bright enough to do something like that.

Maybe his Ukrainian relatives are smarter. In any case, it seems to be more proof about Russia/Trump campaign contacts.

[triron]

7. knr