President
Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was at the center of a bombshell
New York Times report published Sunday that said he hand-delivered a
"peace" plan for Russia and Ukraine to former national security
adviser Michael Flynn before Flynn was asked to resign.
The plan —
which the Times said was "pushed" by Cohen, businessman Felix Sater,
and Ukrainian lawmaker Andreii Artemenko — involved lifting sanctions on Russia
in return for Moscow withdrawing its support for pro-Russia separatists in
eastern Ukraine. It would also allow Russia to maintain control over Crimea,
which it annexed in 2014.
Hours after
the Times story was published, however, Cohen told The Washington Post that he
had never delivered the peace plan to Flynn nor discussed it with anyone in the
White House.
In an
interview with the Post, Cohen corroborated the Times' report that he had met
with Sater and Artemenko in a hotel lobby on Park Avenue in Manhattan in late
January to discuss the proposal. He said the meeting lasted fewer than 15
minutes and acknowledged that he left with the plan in hand.
He
"emphatically" denied, however, "discussing this topic or
delivering any documents to the White House and/or General Flynn," adding
that he told Artemenko that he could "send the proposal to Flynn himself
by writing him at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave," the Post reported.
Cohen
shifted his story again on Monday, telling Business Insider in a series of text
messages that he denies "even knowing what the plan is."
However, he
later acknowledged that he met with Artemenko in New York for "under 10
minutes" to discuss a proposal Artemenko said "was acknowledged by
Russian authorities that would create world peace."
"My
response was, 'Who doesn't want world peace?'" Cohen said.
One of the
Times reporters who broke the peace plan story, Scott Shane, pointed Business
Insider to a statement the newspaper's deputy managing editor had given on
Sunday: "Mr. Cohen told The Times in no uncertain terms that he delivered
the Ukraine proposal to Michael Flynn’s office at the White House. Mr. Sater
told the Times that Mr. Cohen had told him the same thing."
Sater, a
businessman of Russian descent who has boasted of his "relationship with Trump,"
told the Post last May that he "handled all of the negotiations" for
the Trump Organization's dealings in Russia in the mid-2000s. Trump has distanced himself from Sater,
insisting in sworn testimony as part of a 2013 lawsuit that "if [Sater]
were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked
like."
Sater told
the Post that he thought Cohen was going to deliver the plan to Flynn, but that
Cohen had to wait because Flynn was in the middle of a Russia-related
firestorm. Cohen, for his part, was named as a "liaison" between
Trump and the Kremlin in the explosive, unsubstantiated dossier presented by
top US intelligence officials to Trump and senior lawmakers last month.
Sater was
"not practicing diplomacy" in pushing the plan, which he entertained
only because he "wanted to promote peace," he told Fox News on
Monday. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ukrainian
lawmaker Andrii V. Artemenko, who met with Trump's campaign team during the
election, was also involved in drafting the proposal. Artemenko told the Times
he had evidence ofUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko's corruption that could
lead to his ouster.
Poroshenko
has been locked in a war with pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine since
he took power in 2014. He is considered more friendly to the West than his
ousted predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych's political rise was heavily
aided by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who worked as an adviser
on Yanukovych's presidential campaign.
Cohen, for
his part, called the reporting surrounding the meeting "#fakenews."
He said he stands by his story that he never did anything with the plan.
"Change
your fake story or lose my number," Cohen said. "I have no time for
Trump haters."
(Business
Insider)
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