Federal investigators are scrutinizing new documents that reveal additional contacts between Russians and longtime Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen – an invitation to an economic conference in Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Cohen and the Trump organization have handed over the documents, which reveal efforts by former Trump associate Felix Sater to reach out to Cohen to invite him to a June 2016 conference in St. Petersburg.
Sater talked up the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, telling Cohen that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attend, as would top Russian financial leaders, the Washington Post reported.
The Moscow-born Sater also told Cohen that Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov could work out a discussion, people familiar with the electronic exchange told the paper.
Federal investigators are scrutinizing new documents that reveal additional contacts between Russians and longtime Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen (left)
Cohen had previously had discussions with Sater about a potential Trump Tower Moscow project in 2016. That project never came to fruition.
Sater also told Cohen that during the conference he could get introduced to Dmitry Medvedev, the primer minister who stepped in to serve as president between Putin’s terms in office.
The paper did not obtain the documents, but had them described by people familair with them.
Cohen declined the invitation by saying it came too close to the Republican National Convention
The timing of the invite puts it within a period of great interest for investigators, including congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Donald Trump, then a possible 2012 presidential candidate, arrives at the Pease International Tradeport Wednesday, April 27, 2011 in Portsmouth, N.H. Pictured at far right is Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen
June 3 of that year is when music publicist Rob Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton, setting in motion a meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower.
The documents also include an additional offer of a partnering with the Trump Organization on a Moscow real estate project – although Trump said emphatically during the campaign he had no business dealings with Russia.
The offer was from Russian billionaire Sergei Gordeev, to do a residential construction deal in Moscow, and got made in 2015. The discussions were between Cohen and another party, financier Giorgi Rtskhiladze, who told the paper he delivered a 13-page proposal for the Trump development in October 2015.
Donald Trump, Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater attend the Trump Soho Launch Party on September 19, 2007 in New York
Cohen reached out to Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in 2016 seeking assistance with a Trump Tower Moscow project. Peskov is also mentioned in an email urging Cohen to attend an economic conference
The documents also mention a Moscow real estate project with Russian real estate mogul Sergei Gordeev
Cohen said in a statement: ”I did not accept this invitation,’ and added: ‘I have never been to Russia.’
In January 2016, Cohen wrote Peskov seeking ‘assistance’ with a Trump Tower Moscow project.
‘Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower – Moscow project in Moscow City,’ he wrote the Putin spokesman.
Michael Cohen, center, a personal attorney for President Trump, leaves Hart Building after his meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss Russian interference in the 2016 election was postponed on September 19, 2017
‘Without getting into lengthy specifics. the communication between our two sides has stalled,’ Cohen went on, a person familiar with the email told the Washington Post, which reported on the exchange in August.
Sater was involved in that deal as well. ‘Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,’ Sater wrote Cohen. ‘I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process,’ he wrote, the New York Times reported.
The Trump Organization turned over documents being sought by congressional committees in August.
Cohen appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee in September.