Trump lawyer Michael Cohen asked Putin aide for help on Moscow project: report

President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen emailed Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson last year asking for help getting a real estate project in Moscow approved, according to the Washington Post.

The Trump Organization, Cohen’s employer at the time, was trying to develop a Trump Tower in the Russian capital but had hit a roadblock. “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,” Cohen wrote in January 2016 to the spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, the newspaper reported, citing a person who saw the email. “Without getting into lengthy specifics the communication between our two sides has stalled.”

“As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance,” Cohen continued.

Cohen submitted the documents to Congress Monday as part of a probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election, according to the Post. Cohen claimed that he wrote the email at the urging of Felix Sater, a developer who heads the Bayrock Group which co-developed the Trump Soho.

According to the Post, Cohen said he never heard back from Peskov and the project was abandoned shortly after.

Earlier today, the New York Times reported that Sater sent emails to Cohen claiming that building the Trump Tower in Moscow would help Trump win the election.

“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” he wrote, according to the Times. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.” [WaPo] — Konrad Putzier