Michael Cohen changes Trump-Russia story again as new questions swirl
You’d almost get the feeling Michael Cohen is trying to hide something!
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President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer changed his story twice more about the Russia-Ukraine peace plan he may have hand-delivered to former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Michael Cohen, special counsel to the president and a longtime employee of the Trump Organization, admitted to the New York Times that he had delivered sealed plans for settling Russia’s conflict with Ukraine to Flynn before his resignation last week.
However, hours after the Times story was published, Cohen told the Washington Post that he had not brought the sealed plan to Flynn’s office in the White House or discussed it with anyone who worked there.
Cohen told the Post that he’d met with Felix Sater — a Russian-American who once worked for Trump, served prison time for stabbing a man in the face with shards from a margarita glass, pleaded guilty in a stock manipulation scheme involving the Mafia and may have worked as an FBI informant — and Ukrainian lawmaker Andreii Artemenko.
This 15-minute meeting, according to Cohen’s remarks to the Post, took place in late January at Park Avenue hotel lobby, and he admitted leaving with the plan in hand but “emphatically” denied bringing it to the White House.
But Cohen again changed his story Monday when he told Business Insider in a series of text messages that he didn’t even know what the plan was.
Even that account changed a short time later, when Cohen admitted to the website that he’d met for under 10 minutes with Artemenko to discuss the proposal, which the Ukrainian lawmaker told Cohen “was acknowledged by Russian authorities that would create world peace.”
“My response was, ‘Who doesn’t want world peace?’” Cohen told Business Insider.
He made a similar remark — “Who doesn’t want to help bring about peace?” — to the Times in the original report.
Meanwhile, the good folks at the NY Daily News follow the rubles – and they lead to Michael Flynn:
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn received about $40,000 for his appearance at a 2015 party for the Russian government-funded TV channel RT — one of a handful of visits to Moscow that the disgraced ex-Trump aide is under scrutiny for.
Flynn was paid the sum for appearing at RT’s 10th anniversary celebration in 2015, The New Yorker reported in a far-reaching profile of Flynn published Monday.
The sum Flynn had received for the engagement had not previously been reported.
Last week, the Pentagon said it had no record that Flynn had ever received authorization to accept any money for the visit, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump’s Russia problems are not going away. Drip, drip, drip…
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