Will Cohen cooperation shed light on Port Washington role in Russia probe?
BBC reported in May that individuals associated with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sought a direct channel to the president, and used Port Washington connections to reach Cohen.
By MICHAEL WILNERUpdated: DECEMBER 23, 2018 20:41U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen exits Federal Court after entering a guilty plea in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 29, 2018(photo credit: ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS)
WASHINGTON – Michael Cohen’s decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors may finally shed light on a network of foreign agents reportedly linked through a community in Long Island.Reports that came out earlier in the year raised the possibility that a synagogue in Port Washington was somehow connected to attempts by Ukranian officials to gain access to the president through Cohen. The synagogue, affiliated with the Chabad movement, was not involved, although some people who had visited the community in the past, did allegedly try to connect with Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer. According to reports published earlier this year in and the , at least two significant contacts were made through Port Washington that will be of interest to Robert Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.BBC reported in May sought a direct channel to the president, and used Port Washington connections to reach Cohen.Cohen apparently obliged, facilitating communication between Poroshenko and Trump that ultimately led to a meeting, according to the report.Other reports raised the possibility that the same Port Washington channel was used in a previous effort by Putin affiliates to end sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, according to reports in The New York Times.One such report found that Felix Sater, a member of the Port Washington synagogue, met with Cohen in January 2017 to orchestrate an end to the sanctions.Cohen at the time proved himself a successful emissary for Russian interests, delivering the proposal to Michael Flynn, then Trump’s national security adviser and now a cooperating witness in Mueller’s investigation.Sater is a convicted criminal associate of the Russian mob in New York and co-led Bayrock-Sapir, a real estate firm closely associated with Trump, to which Trump turned in his exploration of potential construction contracts in Moscow.The firm was founded by Tamir Sapir, whose son joined Trump’s 2013 meetings in Moscow under investigation by Mueller, and who maintained a close relationship with Lev Leviev, an Putin confidante of Putin.Trump and Leviev met to discuss Moscow real estate opportunities in 2008, according to Russian media reports and photographs.In 2015, Sater emailed Cohen and an unidentified Russian contact about his desire to aid Putin’s effort to elevate Trump to the presidency in 2016.“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” he wrote in another email to the Russian contact. “If he says it we own this election.”The BBC report claimed that Cohen was paid $400,000 to connect Poroshenko’s aides with the White House, where the Ukrainian leader succeeded in meeting with Trump in June. Cohen did not register as a foreign agent representing Ukrainian or Russian interests, as is mandated by US law.While Cohen has confessed to violating campaign finance laws, as well as other crimes unrelated to the Trump campaign, he has not been charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He has entered into a plea agreement with the special counsel and is cooperating, according to Mueller’s office.Shortly after the June meeting with Trump, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency dropped its investigation into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been convicted in court on several felony counts of fraud and faces a second criminal trial related to his representation of foreign interests.
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