U.S.: Cohen met Russian offering ‘political synergy’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was in touch as far back as 2015 with a Russian who offered “political synergy” with the Trump election campaign and proposed a meeting between the candidate and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the special

counsel said Friday.

Court filings from prosecutors in New York and special counsel Robert Mueller’s office lay out previously undisclosed contacts between Trump associates and Russian intermediaries and suggest the Kremlin aimed early on to influence Trump and his campaign by playing to both his political aspirations and his personal business interests.

The filings, in cases involving Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, cap a dramatic week of revelations in Mueller’s ongoing investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The interviews with prosecutors have yielded intimate information about episodes under close examination,

including possible Russian collusion and hush money payments during the campaign to a porn star and Playboy model who say they had sex with

Trump a decade earlier.

In one of the filings, Mueller details how Cohen spoke to a Russian who “claimed to be a ‘trusted person’ in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign ‘political synergy’ and ‘synergy on a government level.’” The person repeatedly dangled a meeting between Trump and Putin, saying such a meeting could have a “phenomenal” impact “not only in political but in a business dimension as well.”

That was a reference to a proposed Moscow real estate deal that prosecutors

say could have netted Trump’s business hundreds of millions of dollars. Cohen admitted last week to lying to Congress by saying discussions about a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016 when in fact they stretched into that June.

Cohen told prosecutors he never followed up.

In an additional filing Friday evening, prosecutors said Manafort lied to them about his contacts with a Russian associate and Trump administration officials, including in 2018.

The court papers say Manafort initially told prosecutors he didn’t have any contact with anyone while they were in the Trump administration. But prosecutors say they recovered “electronic documents” showing his contacts with multiple administration officials. The officials are not identified in the court filings.

Prosecutors in Cohen’s case said that even though he cooperated in their investigation into the hush money payments to women he nonetheless deserved to spend time in prison.

Cohen, dubbed Trump’s “legal fixer” in the past, also described his work in conjunction with Trump in orchestrating hush money payments to two women — porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal — who said they had sex with Trump.

Prosecutors in New York, where Cohen pleaded guilty in August in connection with those payments, allege the lawyer “acted in coordination and at the direction” of Trump.

The president, however, quickly tweeted after news of the filings: “Totally clears the President. Thank you!”

In addition, the filings reveal that Cohen told prosecutors he and Trump discussed a potential meeting

with Putin on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in 2015, shortly after Trump announced his candidacy for president. In a footnote, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team writes that Cohen conferred with Trump “about contacting the Russia government before reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting,” though it never took place.

In meetings with Mueller’s team, Cohen “provided information about his own contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and discussions with others in the course of making those contacts,” the court documents said.

Prosecutors said the court’s Probation Department estimated that federal sentencing guidelines call for Cohen to serve at least four years in prison. They said that “reflects Cohen’s extensive, deliberate and serious criminal conduct.”

Cohen