Paper: Cohen met Russian before inaug

MICHAEL COHEN met with a Kremlin-connected Russian billionaire in Manhattan 11 days before President Trump’s inauguration to discuss their mutual interest in improving U.S.-Russia relations, according to a report.

Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal fixer and attorney, facilitated the Jan. 9, 2017 meeting in his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower to talk foreign policy with Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch whose closeness to the Kremlin landed him on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list earlier this year, Vekselberg’s cousin told the New York Times.

The cousin, Andrew Intrater, attended the Trump Tower sitdown and described it as brief and casual. He also said Cohen and Vekselberg made plans to meet again at Trump’s inauguration.

Shortly after Trump's inauguration, Intrater’s private investment firm, Columbus Nova, awarded Cohen a $1 million consulting contract, which is under scrutiny from federal investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Vekselberg is Intrater's biggest client and invests in business ventures on his behalf.

Intrater insisted to the Times that Vekselberg played no role in hiring Cohen as a consultant — and he now wishes he hadn’t done so because of Cohen’s legal woes.