Putin's Spokeman Confirms Trump's Lawyer Sent an Email About Moscow Project

By Greg Price, Newsweek

30 August 17

ussia confirmed Wednesday that one of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers did indeed send an email asking for help in getting a Trump Tower built in Moscow but that the subject was never brought up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Reuters.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who was speaking with reporters on a conference call, stated he never replied to Michael Cohen’s January 2016 email and had never discussed it with Putin. Cohen reportedly sent the message to a general press email account.

“I can confirm that among the mass of emails there was an email from Mr. Michael Cohen. This really happened,” Peskov said.

Peskov added: “We cannot discuss the hundreds and thousands of various requests from different countries we get with President Putin.”

Cohen provided documents to Congress Monday and told investigators that his goal was a licensing project that would have paid Trump for the use of his name on a development by Russian firm I.C. Exert Investment Co., The Washington Post reported. Cohen also said he talked with Trump about the deal three times and that Trump signed a letter of intent on October 28, 2015.

Cohen, who’s long worked with Trump as a business adviser and lawyer, also told investigators that he was urged to reach out to the Russian government by Felix Sater, a Russian-American businessman who ran a real estate firm in Trump Tower in Manhattan just floors below the president and has previously helped federal investigators in mob probes.

Along with being the strongest known link between the Trump Organization and Russia, the email served as the fourth such message between someone affiliated with either the president’s business or former campaign and further stokes intrigue around special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win last year’s election.

Cohen’s email was sent as Trump was making significant headway in the Republican primaries. The president has denied any business dealings with Russia.

Just before Cohen’s message came to light, current White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn had reportedly received a message in June 2016 from a person known only as “WV” about potentially arranging a meeting between the Trump campaign and Putin.

That email came around the same time that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest child, had set up a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower.