The FBI's Abuse of Michael Cohen -- Part 7

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

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Christopher Steele's Dossier became available to the public in January 2017 -- four months before the establishment of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. For sure, Mueller's staff intended to investigate the Dossier's story about Michael Cohen meeting secretly with Kremlin officials in Prague.

According to staff lawyer Andrew Weissmann, however, that intended investigation of Cohen was delayed because Weissmann very soon received from another lawyer a tip that a Russian "oligarch" (Viktor Vekselberg) had deposited money into an account that Cohen had used to pay to silence two former female lovers of Donald Trump. According to Weissmann, Mueller feared that this sexual aspect of the Cohen investigation might cause a public uproar, as the Monica Lewinsky aspect had done in the earlier Special Counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton. Therefore, Mueller decided to turn the initial investigation of Cohen over to the FBI's Southern District of New York (SDNY).

Mueller and his staff expected the SDNY to implicate Cohen in some process crimes, a situation that eventually would enable that staff to pressure Cohen to confess his secret knowledge of the imaginary Trump-Putin collusion to accomplish an October Surprise that would enable Trump to win unfairly the USA's 2016 Presidential election.

The raid on Cohen's home, hotel room and law office in April 2018 was carried out by the SDNY, without the Special Counsel's involvement.

Of course, the SDNY easily did implicate Cohen in various process crimes and then turn him back over to be Special Counsel staff to be pressured into confessing, but then Cohen was not able to reveal any such knowledge. After all, the collusion always had been just imaginary.

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When Weissmann had been informed about Russian "oligarch" Vekselberg depositing money into Cohen's account that was used to pay hush-money to Trump's alleged lovers, Weissmann surely assumed this arrangement as a key part of the imaginary collusion where Russians secretly had helped Trump win the election. However, the Mueller Report does not say anything about that situation where Vekselberg's money and the hush money were passing through Cohen's bank account. Therefore we should deduce that Mueller's staff was not able to connect "oligarch" Vekselverg's money to any such collusion.

Also, the Mueller Report does not write anything along the lines that:

* the Special Counsel offered Cohen legal leniency for his process crimes in exchange for his secret knowledge about the Trump-Putin collusion,

* but Cohen responded that he did not know anything about any such collusion and furthermore perceived the FBI's collusion delusion to be preposterous.

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The FBI had interviewed Steele's "primary sub-source" Igor Danchenko already in January 2017 and so knew that the "Kremlin insider" who told the yarn about Cohen in Prague was Danchenko's former school-mate Olga Galkina, who was living in Cyprus. Therefore, the Mueller Report ignored that yarn except for three sentences stating simply that Cohen had not gone to Prague. The Report does not explain the FBI's certainty about this point.

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In regard to Cohen, the Mueller Report's main idea is to insinuate that there was something sinister about proposals to develop a Trump Hotel in Moscow. The insinuation was that Putin was helping Trump to develop that hotel project as one part of a larger collusion to help Trump win the 2016 election by devious methods. The FBI's idea -- reinforced by the Dossier -- seems to be that Putin's secret help on the hotel project would compromise Trump and so allow Putin to blackmail and extort Trump. 

At that time, the Trump Organization had developed six Trump Hotels in the USA, two in Scotland and one in Ireland. On one hand, developing Trump Hotels was not a new activity, but on the other hand, a Trump Hotel in Moscow would be in a novel location and environment. 

Indeed, Cohen was involved in some talk about the proposed Moscow hotel, but nothing significant happened. No site was selected, no financing was provided, no Russian partners were recruited, no business trips were done, and no contracts were signed. The main promoter of the project was Felix Sater, a Russian immigrant who lived in the USA and dabbled in real estate.

The Special Counsel indicted Cohen for stating publicly that the project essentially had ended in January 2016, whereas some trivial conversations had happened as late as June 2016. Cohen wrote in his book that he pleaded guilty to all the charges -- no matter how absurd -- just to prevent an indictment of his wife for evading taxes. He had turned against Trump and was happy to incriminate Trump in any wrong-doing, but Cohen simply did not know anything about the imaginary election collusion.

If Cohen had gone to trial on the charge that he had not mentioned the June 2016 conversations about the hotel project, then the prosecutors would have had to prove that this omission was material to the FBI's investigations. If the FBI had been told earlier about the June 2016, then nothing would have changed in the FBI investigations. The FBI never had to prove the materiality, however, because Cohen pleaded guilty and did not go to trial.

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This blog article is the end of my series titled "The FBI's Abuse of Michael Cohen". However, I intend to write another series summarizing my current speculations about the Prague-meeting yarn.

The FBI's Abuse of Michael Cohen -- Part 6

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

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The book Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump, was written by Fusion GPS owners Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch and was published in November 2019.

Cover of the book Crime in Progress,
by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch

Simpson and Fritsch hired Christopher Steele, who wrote the Dossier.

The book's final chapter suggests that false information about Michael Cohen visiting Prague was "misinformation fed to Steele to discredit him".

It is certainly possible that Cohen was mistakenly identified as one of the attendees of the [Prague] meeting by Steele's source. It could also be that the whole story of the Prague meeting was misinformation fed to Steele to discredit him, something the former spy [Steele] knew to be a risk anytime he collected information from sources.

Yet Cohen has never publicly produced a concrete alibi concerning is whereabouts during the period in question, and there are still unexplained aspects of the alleged incident, such as reports of cell signals from Cohen's phone in the region and reports of his presence picked up by foreign intelligence agencies.

It's likely that Simpson and Fritsch knew by November 2019 (when their book was published) that Steele's "primary sub-source" was Igor Danchenko. I think Danchenko had told Steele most of what he had told the FBI in early 2017, and then Steele told Simpson and Fritsch.

If so, then it's likely also that Simpson and Fritsch knew that Danchenko had heard the Prague-visit yarn from Olga Galkina, a former high-school classmate (each was about 38 years old in 2016), who worked for "oligarch" Aleksey Gubarev in Cyprus during most of 2016. (In his Dossier, Steele called Galkina a "Kremlin insider".)

Since Simpson and Fritsch might know significant information about Galkina that is not known to the public, I take seriously their speculation that the Prague-trip yarn was fed to Steele in order to discredit him. I perceive two likely culprits: 1) Gubarev, and 2) Russian Intelligence.

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As Galkina's employer in Cyprus, Gubarev might have learned (for example, by secretly reading her communications) that she was earning money also by selling derogatory information to Danchenko, who in turn was selling it to Steele. Some such derogatory information was about Gubarev himself. (Eventually, Gubarev sued Steele for defamation.)

Gubarev fired Galkina in Cyprus shortly before she told the Prague-trip yarn to Danchenko in October. The ostensible justification for her firing was that she chronically came to work late, often drunk. However, that justification might be just a pretext for another, real reason -- that Gubarev had learned she was selling derogatory information about himself.

In this situation, Gubarev himself might have told Galkina -- before he fired her -- the false story about Cohen visiting Prague. Doing so, Gubarev intended that the false story eventually would discredit Galkina, Danchenko and Steele. In order to give his false story an initial, secret plausibility, Gubarev caused Cohen's phone number to ping in Prague and to cause a couple of Russians in Europe to communicate about Cohen being in Prague. (Gubarev was wealthy enough to accomplish such spoofs.)

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The other likely culprit, Russian Intelligence, might have learned about the Galkina-Danchenko-Steele arrangement in various ways. For example, Galkina herself might have been recruited to work as an agent for Russian Intelligence. Or perhaps Gubarev himself occasionally informed and cooperated with Russian Intelligence.

In any such case, Russian Intelligence likewise could have caused Cohen's phone number to ping in Prague and to cause a couple of Russians in Europe to communicate about Cohen being in Prague. Furthermore, Russian Intelligence might have known that those pings and communications would be detected by an East European intelligence agency.

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In any such scenario, the selection of Cohen to be the fall-guy is puzzling. In September 2016, Cohen was not an obvious candidate for involvement in any hoax about Trump-Russian collusion. In late 2015, Cohen had played a role in a proposal to develop a Trump hotel in Moscow, but that proposal had ended essentially in January 2016. Cohen was not involved significantly in Trump's election campaign.

If Russian Intelligence had wanted to concoct a false story about a Prague meeting, then it would have made much more sense to implicate, say, Carter Page rather than Michael Cohen.

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In relation to their Russian-collusion conspiracy theory, Simpson and Fritsch write that they became interested in Cohen in September 2016 (page 234). In that month, a Fusion GPS employee, Jacob Berkowitz, observed that Cohen had addressed a Twitter tweet to Sergei Millian, asking whether Millian had seen Trump's standing in the polls. Following that observation, ...

... Fusion asked Steele in the fall of 2016 to see whether Cohen rang any bells among his sources in Russia. ... On October 18, Steele filed a [Dossier] memo with the first mention of Cohen. ....

At Fusion's urging, Steele kept pushing his sources for more information on Cohen. [On October 20,] two days after his first memo mentioning Cohen, he came back with more: In August [2016], Cohen had held a secret meeting with "Kremlin officials" in Prague, Steele's source [Galkina] said.

It was a stunning report. While there was no way to immediately verify Cohen's whereabouts, other aspects of the Prague reporting fit with information coming in at the time from independent sources. One of the Russians who Steele [i,.e. Galkina] said was at the meeting ran the Prague office of a Russian government cultural organization [Rossotrudnichestvo] that the U.S. authorities believed was a front for Russian intelligence.

Simpson and Fritsch add that ...

... other aspects of the Prague reporting fit with the information coming in at the time from independent sources.

It's likely that this other information was data from an NSA database that a Mike Cohen (not the Michael Cohen who worked as Trump's lawyer) had been in Prague in August 2016.

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While Fusion GPS was monitoring Millian's Twitter communications in September 2016, Cohen happened to send an election-related tweet to Millian.

Therefore, Simpson and Fritsch asked Steele whether he could provide any information about Cohen's involvement in the imaginary Trump-Russia collusion to affect the USA's 2016 election. Therefore, Steele asked Danchenko (located in the USA), who asked "Kremlin insider" Galkina (located in Cyprus). In order to keep earning money in this arrangement, Galkina told a yarn -- Cohen had met recently with Kremlin officials in Eastern Europe -- that she knew would please Danchenko, Steele, Simpson and Fritsch.

That is how Cohen got included in Steele's Dossier.

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Continued in Part 7

The FBI's Abuse of Michael Cohen -- Part 5

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

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Andrew Weissman's book Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation, published in 2020, provides some limited information about the FBI's investigation of Michael Cohen. 

Cover of Andrew Weissman's
book, Where Law Ends

In Mueller's Special Counsel staff, Weissman headed one of three "principle teams" -- the team that investigated Paul Manafort. The other two teams investigated "Russian interference in the 2016 election" and "obstructions of justice". (The overwhelming majority of the staff members were current or past FBI officials.)

Weissmann tells at length how he intended to "flip" Manafort by prosecuting him for tax evasions, for failure to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), for lying to the FBI and for any other process crimes. Once Manafort's guilt for such crimes was proved, then Weissmann intended to promise leniency in the punishments if Manafort would provide evidence that Donald Trump or his associates had colluded with Russia to affect the election.  

In that regard, Weissmann's book is a shaggy-dog story. Eventually, Weissmann did confess to some crimes and agree to cooperate with Weissmann. However, the book does not reveal what Manafort was asked about the suspected collusion -- or what relevant information Manafort provided. It should be obvious to any intelligent reader that Manafort could not provide any information about such collusion -- because no such collusion ever happened.

Likewise, the book's telling about the principle team investigation of "Russian interference in the 2016 election" is another shaggy-dog story. That team indicted several Russians for such interference. One such Russian, Yevgeny Prigozhin, hired an American law firm, which agreed to stand trial. When the trial was about to begin in March 2020, the prosecutors dropped all the charges, and so the trial never took place. Weissmann's book tells about the indictments, but says nothing at all about the dropping of all charges right before the trial.

(The intelligent reader should surmise that the Special Counsel's indictment of Prigozhin was just a publicity stunt that was not based on compelling evidence. The Special Counsel had not foreseen that any of the indicted Russians ever might appear to stand trial.)

Weissmann's book does not significantly discuss the fact that Mueller's final report said that no evidence was found incriminating any Americans in the suspected collusion with Russia. Rather than discuss that finding, Weiussman's book complains at length that the Special Counsel staff was not able to compel President Trump to answer all the arrogant, obnoxious questions that Weissmann thinks should have been asked.

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Weissman's discussion of Michael Cohen is limited, because the investigation of Cohen was removed from the Special Counsel's jurisdiction -- in particular, from Weissmann's supervision.

Of course, Cohen had nothing at all to do with any Russian collusion to affect the election -- because there never was any such collusion.

During the Special Counsel investigation, Cohen came to Weissmann's attention because an outside attorney (not named in the book) -- who had become acquainted with Weissman during a previous FBI investigation of the Enron company -- sent Weissmann a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) that a foreign bank (represented by that attorney) intended to submit to the US Treasury Department about Cohen. 

That SAR indicated that, "soon after the 2016 election", some payments had been deposited into "a Cohen business account ... from a source linked to a Russian oligarch". After those words, on page 143 of his book, Weissman never writes another word in the following 200 pages about those payments or that unnamed "oligarch". 

The SAR mentioned also that the same "Cohen business account" had, before the election, deposited $130,000 into the account of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Mueller worried that this sexual aspect might turn his own Special Counsel investigation into something like the Monica Lewinsky circus, and so he decided to transfer the entire Cohen investigation to the FBI's Southern District of New York (SDNY). Therefore, Weissmann's book does not provide any further inside information about the investigation and prosecution of Cohen. 

Eventually, Cohen pleaded guilty to several charges (e.g. tax evasion, campaign-finance violations) that had nothing at all to do with any suspected Russian collusion to affect the 2016 election. In the course of his ordeal, Cohen turned against Trump and so was eager to provide any information incriminating Trump that he knew. 

After Cohen was convicted, he agreed to answer the questions of the Special Counsel staff. Of course, that staff asked Cohen about the suspected election collusion, but Weissmann's book does not specify any such questions -- or Cohen's answers. So Weissmann's narrative about Cohen is yet another shaggy-dog story. The intelligent reader should surmise that Cohen could not provide Weissmann any information about election collusion -- because no such collusion happened. 

Cohen did tell the Special Counsel staff that he had made some misleading statements about a project to develop a Trump-branded hotel in Moscow. Cohen had said publicly that the project had ended by January 2016, although some discussions had occurred intermittently until June 2016. In the post-January discussions, however, their essence was that no significant progress was being accomplished.

Obviously, Weissmann and some of his fellow staff members were obsessed by their suspicion that Russian President Vladimir Putin was secretly helping Trump to establish the Moscow hotel as a reward for Trump's collusion. 

Cohen, in his own book, writes (pages 10-11) that in January 2016, his associate Felix Sater had tried to arrange for him, Cohen, to travel to Russia make some progress on the hotel project. (Cohen was not only Trump's lawyer; he was acting also as an executive in Trump's organization.) However, Cohen decided not to do the trip, because he lacked any reliable information that any relevant person in Moscow had the necessary licenses, permits and funding to develop such a hotel project. In Cohen's mind, his decision in January 2016 to not travel to Moscow was the actual end of the project, although there were a few more discussions in the following months, into June 2016.   

Nevertheless, the FBI compelled Cohen to plead guilty to lying when he had said that nothing happened in the hotel project after January 2016. In general, Cohen says he was innocent of all the charges, but he was compelled to plead guilty because he feared his wife might be prosecuted likewise for the tax-evasion charges. 

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When Weissmann wrote in his book that  "soon after the 2016 election", some payments had been deposited into "a Cohen business account ... from a source linked to a Russian oligarch", Weissmann intended that his book's readers would assume that these deposits incriminated Cohen somehow. 

Since, however, Weissmann never writes another word about those deposits or that "oligarch", the intelligent reader should surmise that those deposits had nothing at all to do with any Russian collusion in the USA's 2016 election." That passage in Weissmann's book is just a gratuitous and malicious smear of Cohen. 

Exactly what was this "source linked to a Russian oligarch"? It was not even the "oligarch" himself! Rather, it was merely a "source linked to a Russian oligarch".

According to another book, Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump (page 241), which I will discuss in my next blog article, the "oligarch" was Viktor Vekselberg, who paid Cohen's company Essential Consultants for "investment consulting".

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The Special Counsel's published report stated that Cohen did not travel to Prague, despite the many Dossier statements that he had done so. Weissmann does not write anything about the Special Counsel's investigation of this trip or about its firm conclusion that the Prague trip had not happened.

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Continued in Part 6