A Little Dirt on Cohen

Two very different men have been instrumental in introducing financiers and clients from Russia and the former Soviet bloc to the Trump Organization’s real estate machine: Felix Sater, Donald Trump’s former business partner and a convicted felon, and Michael Cohen, Trump’s brash, longtime personal attorney.

  TPM

Haven't heard much out of Cohen.

And TPM now has learned from conversations with both Sater and Cohen that the two men know each other dating back to their teenage years, when they were acquaintances from nearby towns on Long Island.

[...]

The two men say they arrived in business with Trump through different avenues.

[...]

Sater said he most clearly remembers the beginning of his relationship with Cohen from the time the former Trump Organization attorney began dating his now-wife, whom Sater describes as a girl from his neighborhood of Jewish Soviet expatriates. Cohen told TPM the pair had known each other before then, in their teenage years, and that he hadn’t yet begun dating his wife, reportedly a Ukrainian émigré, when he was in his teens.

Nothing suspicious - that was a long time ago. I don't expect them to remember every detail from their teen years.

“We did not own real estate together, but certainly looked at a bunch of stuff together, during Trump and post-Trump,” Sater says. “After I left there, I was still looking at deals for Trump, but I would think about real estate with Michael. [It] was just two real estate guys talking.” Sater starts to say something more, but cuts himself off.

[...]

Still, the two men appear to know each other well enough for there to be considerable trust. They were both involved in a scheme to deliver a “peace plan” to the White House that proposed letting Ukrainian voters decide whether to lease Crimea to Russia in hopes that the move would lead to the relaxation of international sanctions.

Wait, what? Two real estate wheeler-dealers are working on a peace plan for the White House?

Sater told TPM he called the now-notorious meeting with Cohen and Ukrainian politician Andrii Artemenko in February to discuss the future of Ukraine. Cohen took the meeting, and told the New York Times that he ultimately left the proposal on the desk of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (Cohen would later give several contradictory interviews in which he walked back his involvement).

Nothing ever came of the plan, but it caused outcry from all corners of the diplomatic world—who were these men, and what were they doing?

Yeah, that's what I'm asking. I bet that's what Special Prosecutor Mueller is asking, too.

Asked why he arranged the meeting, Sater told TPM “Because I could!”

Well, there you go.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.