Trump’s towering conflict
President Trump’s feeble initial response to Russia’s recent attack on Ukraine was only the latest to raise familiar questions about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. Is it just another case of Trump’s unfortunate taste in world leaders, or is his unorthodox alliance with the Russian strongman, like most of his dealings, transactional?
Michael Cohen, a man who knows something about Trump and Russia, provided part of an answer Thursday. In his second guilty plea as a result of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Trump fixer turned federal witness said in court that the Trump Organization was angling to build a tower in Moscow, with Putin’s assistance, deep into the presidential campaign. Suggesting a coverup, Cohen’s account is at odds with his earlier statements as well as those of the Putin camp and Trump himself, who insisted he had “nothing to do with Russia.”
Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress’ intelligence committees by portraying the proposed Russian deal as dead by January 2016 and understating the extent to which Trump was briefed. According to prosecutors, the transnational real estate negotiation continued until at least June of that year, after Trump clinched the Republican nomination. Documents filed by prosecutors also say Cohen kept Trump more informed than he admitted along with members of the candidate’s family — who would not enjoy the same protections from criminal charges as a sitting president.
Trump was identified for the purposes of the proceedings as “Individual 1,” a sobriquet that first appeared in August, when Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign-finance laws and implicated the president in secret payoffs to alleged paramours.
Cohen’s latest court admission is a reminder that Mueller has more potential witnesses than former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, whose cooperation agreement exploded this week with the revelation that he was acting as a sort of double agent.
The plea also indicates that in the thick of the campaign, Trump was secretly advancing not only his political interest in avoiding embarrassing stories about his personal life but also his financial interest in a foreign country that has been hostile to U.S. interests. Even without evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Putin’s election interference, which was linked more closely to the president’s inner circle by other recent developments, the Russian real estate talks undermine Trump’s chants of “witch hunt” and “no collusion.”
Trump weakly blamed all sides on Monday after Russians fired on Ukrainians in waters off the seized territory of Crimea and looked forward to meeting Putin at the G20 summit anyway. After Cohen’s plea, however, the president abruptly reversed course and said he would cancel their chat, citing sudden and supposed consternation over Russian aggression. As an attempt to distance himself from Putin, it was underwhelming and overdue.