The BBC is reporting President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received at least $400,000 to “fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump”:
The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine’s leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law… Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country’s anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
An anonymous senior Ukrainian intel officer said President Poroshenko “decided to establish a back channel to Trump”.
He contacted a former aide, who with the help of a Ukrainian lawmaker managed to use contacts who attended Chabad of Port Washington, a Jewish charity in New York’s Long Island, to reach Cohen and establish the backchannel.
One of the contacts identified in setting up the backchannel is Felix Sater, a former mobster who was once Trump’s business partner and has close connections to the Chabad.
Chabad said its officials were not involved, and the BBC did not dispute that.
Trump had met with Poroshenko last June and the report says there’s “no suggestion” he was aware of this payment.
However, they may not have gotten their money’s worth, per the BBC:
Cohen’s fee was for getting Poroshenko more than just an embarrassingly brief few minutes of small talk and a handshake, the senior official said. But negotiations continued until the early hours of the day of the visit. The Ukrainian side were angry, the official went on, because Cohen had taken “hundreds of thousands” of dollars from them for something it seemed he could not deliver. Right up until the last moment, the Ukrainian leader was uncertain if he would avoid humiliation. ”Poroshenko’s inner circle were shocked by how dirty this whole arrangement [with Cohen] was.”
(Nat Golden – YWN)
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10 Responses
1. Ukraine and Russia are enemies. If Trump is Putin’s puppet, why is he talking to the Ukranians?
2, Influence peddling is only illegal if you work for the government and Cohen never did get a government job.
This article appears to insinuate that his was a Chabad operation. “Chabad contacts”, “a mobster with close connections to Chabad”, etc. GIVE ME A BREAK!!! YWN should not permit this kind of reporting…
Akuperma, read the whole BBC report. It answers your first question. As for your second question, even the abbreviated report here mentions that it’s illegal to act as a representative of a foreign government without registering as such.
yehudayona aren’t you relieved that as per BBC you can get your pound of flesh?
EG33160,
[if] Facts are Facts…
For any who have been involved for years in Russian kiruv,hardly any of these would register much of a surprise
Yehudayona:
Oh, you mean like John Kerry and the Iranians?
“was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law”
I wonder which law this would be. While I may not know anything about U.S. law (being from a different country), an internet search shows me a “Foreign Agents Registration Act”. That law was originally worded to include only propaganda activity on behalf of foreign interest. It was later expanded to include certain economic activities on behalf of foreign interest. But the problem I have is defining just what actual activities requires registering as a foreign agent. The justice.gov website states the following:
> If an agent disseminates informational materials, by mail or by any means or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, and intends the materials to be disseminated among two or more persons,
Did Cohen actually do any such “dissemination”? Does arranging for a meeting between individuals constitute “dissemination” of materials?
So basically they’re alleging michael Cohen (who wasn’t and isn’t in government) something which Hillary has done numerous times with the Clinton foundation
Pay for play
☕️coffee addict ,
If Clinton was partially unfit because of this ,then…
No shortage of whataboutism in these comments. Not to mention that bizarre pound of flesh comment. AFAIK William Shakespeare never worked for the BBC.