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Trump Lawyer Helped Recruit Corporate Client With Ties to Kushner Probe
U.S. Immigration Fund LLC, which supplied Chinese investors to Kushner Cos., is among clients Michael Cohen delivered to Squire Patton Boggs
After Donald Trump’s election, Michael Cohen began generating business both through his relationship with Squire Patton Boggs and through his own firm, Essential Consultants LLC. Above, Mr. Cohen, center, leaving a New York City courthouse last month. PHOTO: HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Erica Orden,
Joe Palazzolo and
Julie Bykowicz
May 9, 2018 5:46 p.m. ET
1 COMMENTS
President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen helped a law and lobbying firm land a corporate client with ties to Kushner Cos., the family company of White House adviser Jared Kushner that is currently the subject of a federal probe.
Under a 2017 contract with Squire Patton Boggs, Mr. Cohen was paid $500,000 a year to help it drum up business, prosecutors said in a recent filing in federal court in New York, where Mr. Cohen is under investigation for potential bank fraud and campaign-finance violations. He also received a cut of any fees it collected from clients he referred.
Among five clients Mr. Cohen delivered to Squire Patton Boggs—before the firm terminated the contract with him in early March—was U.S. Immigration Fund LLC, according to court filings and Nicholas Mastroianni II, U.S. Immigration Fund’s chief executive. The Florida company connects businesses with foreign investors through a U.S. visa program.
After Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Cohen began generating business both through his relationship with Squire Patton Boggs and through his own firm, Essential Consultants LLC.
Mr. Cohen formed Essential Consultants in October 2016 and used it to pay $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress known professionally as Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual relationship with the president. Mr. Trump denies that relationship.
Federal agents and prosecutors in New York are examining whether Mr. Cohen violated any laws in his efforts to raise cash and conceal negative information about Mr. Trump, including the payment to Ms. Clifford, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided Mr. Cohen’s premises last month.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, referred the Cohen investigation to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the Journal previously reported.
Mr. Cohen didn’t respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Immigration Fund last year organized a trip to China for several Kushner Cos. officials, including Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, to seek investors for commercial-and-residential towers in Jersey City, N.J., the Journal has reported. Ms. Meyer pitched potential investors on participating in a program known as EB-5, which provides permanent U.S. residency to immigrants who invest at least $500,000 in certain job-creating businesses.
Kushner Cos. relied on U.S. Immigration Fund, which has pooled foreign funds for some of the largest developments in the EB-5 program, and a Chinese company to arrange the investor presentation. The project had been listed on U.S. Immigration Fund’s website, but the company ended its involvement with the Kushner Cos. development after the negative publicity from the presentation, Mr. Mastroianni said.
After company officials returned to the U.S., the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened investigations into the Kushner Cos. use of EB-5, the Journal has reported.
Prosecutors in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office have obtained video footage of Ms. Meyer’s investor presentation in China, which also featured a photo of Mr. Trump and references to the president and Mr. Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter. Though aspects of Ms. Meyer’s presentation were made public through news reports at the time, there was no full accounting of her remarks, and investigators were able to review her presentation by obtaining a cellphone video from her husband, who also attended the trip.
Through its general counsel, Kushner Cos. has said it “fully complied with its rules and regulations and did nothing improper” with regard to the EB-5 program.
A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, John Marzulli, said, “I can’t confirm or deny an investigation.”
Federal prosecutors handling the investigation suggested to Kushner Cos. in recent weeks that the company isn’t a target of their probe in the EB-5 case, according to a person briefed on the matter, and have told company officials that their involvement in the future will likely be limited to serving as possible witnesses.
People familiar with the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, however, say the office doesn’t consider anyone a target of an investigation until the office is poised to charge them.
U.S. Immigration Fund had partnered with Kushner Cos. on another Jersey City project a few years earlier, raising $50 million for a luxury apartment complex that was spearheaded by Jared Kushner, according to U.S. Immigration Fund’s website. Mr. Kushner was CEO of the company until he resigned to accept his White House position.
Mr. Mastroianni, U.S. Immigration Fund’s CEO, said in an interview that he met with Mr. Cohen in the attorney’s Rockefeller Center office last year. Mr. Cohen put him in touch with Edward Newberry, a top lobbyist in the Washington, D.C., office of Squire Patton Boggs, Mr. Mastroianni said.
Squire Patton Boggs has received $370,000 from U.S. Immigration Fund to lobby Congress and the administration on reforming the EB-5 visa system, according to lobbying reports. The firm hasn’t represented the company on any legal matters, according to a firm spokesman.
U.S. Immigration Fund and developers have beat back efforts by lawmakers to change EB-5 rules to ban the program’s use to finance projects in wealthier areas instead of in rural and high-unemployment areas.
Squire Patton Boggs described its work for the company as lobbying on “reform of the immigrant investor EB-5 program,” in the firm’s June 2017 lobbying registration statement.
Mr. Mastroianni donated $150,000 last year to a joint fundraising committee in support of Mr. Trump’s re-election, according to Federal Election Commission records. Mr. Mastroianni’s family also gave $100,000 to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund, records show.
Separately, it emerged Tuesday that Mr. Cohen’s own firm, Essential Consultants, received $500,000 in 2017 from an investment fund linked to a Russian oligarch and hundreds of thousands of dollars more from companies including AT&T Inc. and Novartis AG , according to a person familiar with the matter and spokespeople for the companies.
The payments were revealed in a memo released Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Ms. Clifford. Mr. Avenatti declined to comment.
It is unclear where Mr. Avenatti got the information about Mr. Cohen’s bank transactions. The Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating whether suspicious-activity reports related to Mr. Cohen were “improperly disseminated,” a spokesman for that office said Wednesday.
Under federal law, banks are required to flag transactions that appear to have no business or apparent lawful purpose or that deviate inexplicably from a customer’s normal bank activity. Suspicious-activity reports are filed to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, where federal investigators can access them.
It is a crime to disclose the existence of a suspicious-activity report or related information to any third parties.
AT&T Inc. said Tuesday it paid Essential Consultants in 2017 for “insights” into the Trump administration at a time when the telecommunications giant needed government approval for an $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc.
Mr. Avenatti’s memo also alleged that Novartis AG made several payments to Mr. Cohen. The pharmaceutical company said in a statement that it entered a one-year contract with Mr. Cohen’s Essential Consultants in February 2017, and paid it $1.2 million. He was to provide advice related to U.S. health-care policy matters, the company said, adding that it cooperated with the special counsel’s request for information last November.
Write to Erica Orden at erica.orden@wsj.com, Joe Palazzolo at joe.palazzolo@wsj.com and Julie Bykowicz at julie.bykowicz@wsj.com
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:ALERTRED::ALERTRED::ALERTRED:
REMEMBER PETER SMITH WHO KILLED HIMSELF LAST SUMMER AFTER TRYING TO GET HACKERS TO GET HILLARY'S EMAILS?!?!?!
REMEMBER PETER SMITH WHO KILLED HIMSELF LAST SUMMER AFTER TRYING TO GET HACKERS TO GET HILLARY'S EMAILS?!?!?!
House Democrats obtain new documents from estate of GOP operative in Russia inquiry
Win McNamee/Getty Images
WATCH A Whole Lot of Paper: Hillary Clinton’s 55,000 Pages of Emails
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have received new materials from the estate of Peter Smith, a GOP operative who reportedly led a campaign to obtain missing Hillary Clinton emails from Russian hackers during the 2016 presidential race, sources familiar with the materials production tell ABC News.
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Add Russia Investigation as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Russia Investigation news, video, and analysis from ABC News.
The delivery is the latest unilateral move by Democrats on the panel after Republicans moved to end the committee’s probe.
Last year, the Wall Street Journal first reported that Smith, a Republican activist from Chicago who died in May 2017, led an effort to obtain emails Hillary Clinton deleted from her private email server from Russian hackers, and cited senior Trump campaign officials in his effort.
William Ensing, the attorney for Smith’s estate, confirmed to ABC News the delivery of documents to the committee in response to a request from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee.
A spokesman for Schiff declined to comment.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff speaks at the Council On Foreign Relations, February 16, 2018 in Washington, DC.more +
Smith's records are of interest to congressional investigators continuing to probe potential contacts between the Trump campaign - and those within the campaign's orbit - and Russia.
The Journal has also reported that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating any role that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign who briefly served as national security adviser in the Trump White House, might have had in that effort.
Attorneys for Flynn and his son have declined to answer questions from ABC News about any alleged contacts between their clients and Smith.
The Senate Intelligence Committee previously sought and received some materials from Smith’s estate last year, as part of their ongoing investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference.
Days before his death, Smith told the Journal he was not operating on behalf of the Trump campaign.
The acquisition of documents from Smith’s estate is the latest indication that Democrats are continuing their investigation after Republicans released a report that found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Trump campaign but criticized the intelligence community and actions taken by Trump associates.
The committee’s bipartisan Russia investigation was plagued with infighting between the majority and minority, who sparred over the focus of the probe, document production and potential witnesses at nearly every turn.
In April, Democrats - who claim Republicans failed to sufficiently explore allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia - interviewed former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie, and claimed that he provided new information about the controversial data firm’s targeting tactics, after Facebook claimed that it harvested data from up to 87 million Facebook profiles.
No Republicans attended the meeting, according to a source in the room for the interview.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Cohen camp trying to get Avenati banned from repping Stormy Daniels 
Keep your foot on they neck Avenati :buckeyeahhhhhhh:
Keep your foot on they neck Avenati :buckeyeahhhhhhh:
THIS IS ONE GIANT INCESTUOUS POOL OF fukkERY!!! HOLY shyt!
MARC KASOWITZ REPRESENTS VEKSELBERG, TOO!!
Russian Oligarch-Linked Firm That Paid Michael Cohen Was Also Represented by Trump Lawyer Marc Kasowitz
The investment firm that the two Trump attorneys worked for, Columbus Nova, calls it a “coincidence.”
by Justin Elliott
May 9, 6:14 p.m. EDT
Michael Cohen leaves the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 26. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The news on Tuesday that the same shell company that Michael Cohen, a longtime personal lawyer for Donald Trump, had used to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels had also received about $500,000 in 2017 from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch set off a frenzy of commentary on Twitter and cable TV.
At the heart of the story is an investment firm called Columbus Nova, which has close links to Renova Group, a conglomerate founded by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. A Columbus Nova spokesman has said the payments to Cohen were for unspecified investment consulting.
Now there’s a new wrinkle: Another longtime Trump personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, also represented Columbus Nova in recent years in a commercial case. A spokesman for Kasowitz said the case settled in early 2017.
As ProPublica reported last year, Cohen spent a short period in February 2017 working at the offices of Kasowitz Benson Torres in midtown Manhattan, alarming several lawyers at the firm who worried about the brash attorney’s reputation. That was at the beginning of the period, between January and August 2017, when Columbus Nova made its payments to Cohen.
Cohen told ProPublica last year that he used Kasowitz’s offices “because we were working on several matters together after the inauguration.” Both he and Kasowitz have declined to specify what they collaborated on.
A Columbus Nova spokesman said that the investment firm was not introduced to Cohen by Kasowitz. The spokesman said Kasowitz worked on only one commercial matter for Columbus Nova and that it was a coincidence that the firm had used two lawyers who also represent Trump.
Asked whether any of Cohen’s brief time at the Kasowitz offices related to matters for Columbus Nova, Renova, or Vekselberg, a Kasowitz spokesman said “no.” The spokesman added, “The firm did not do any substantive work with Michael Cohen after he left the Trump Organization.” Cohen resigned from the Trump Organization in January 2017.
Cohen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Any work Cohen did with Kasowitz in 2017 could take on new relevance since the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office last month. Kasowitz, who was Trump’s lead lawyer in the Russia investigation for a brief period last year, has reportedly still been involved in advising the president in the case.
Kasowitz continues to represent Trump in other matters. That includes a suit by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” who claims Trump defamed her by calling her a liar after she asserted that he had made unwanted sexual advances. Kasowitz Benson Torres specializes in commercial litigation and has represented many large U.S. and foreign companies.
Kasowitz’s work for Columbus Nova stretches back to at least 2010 in related cases filed in New York and Illinois. In Illinois, Fifth Third Bank sued Columbus Nova and several affiliated entities, alleging that they had causedthe bank to lose tens of millions of dollars on loans to a life insurance financing program that was “permeated … by fraud and embezzlement.” In the New York case, Kasowitz and three other attorneys at his firm filed a separate suit alleging that it was Fifth Third Bank that had committed fraud and caused losses.
The name of Andrew Intrater, the CEO of Columbus Nova and the cousin of Vekselberg, comes up repeatedly in the litigation.
Kasowitz’s spokesman said the litigation settled in 2017. The terms do not appear to be public.
“The firm represented Nina Investments LLC and its affiliates, Santa Maria Overseas, Ltd., Columbus Nova Investments IV, Ltd., and Renova U.S. Management LLC, in a commercial litigation with Fifth Third Bank, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, over a failed investment in a company called Concord Capital Management, LLC,” the Kasowitz spokesman said. “The litigation was commenced in 2010 and settled in early 2017.”
previously described Columbus Nova as one of its holdings. Columbus Nova’s website previously described itself “as the US investment vehicle for the Renova Group.”
Vekselberg was among those hit with sanctions last month by the Trump administration in response to “malign activity around the globe” by the Russian government. The New York Times subsequently reported that Vekselberg was questioned by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller.
Along with the payments from Columbus Nova, Cohen also received payments from corporations including AT&T and Novartis. AT&T said it hired Cohen “to provide insights into understanding the new administration.” ProPublica recently reported that Kasowitz used his access to the Trump administration to help another client, a New York investor, with a casino in Vietnam.
Additional reporting by Claire Perlman.
Do you have information about the Michael Cohen or Marc Kasowitz? Contact Justin at justin@propublica.org or via Signal at 774-826-6240.
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88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
King of Creampies
Hop in. You coming too!
nikka.
You giving heart attacks online. 
My fukking father just called me overseas asking about this.
and I had to read the shyt all the way at the end.
- Andy Borowitz is the New York Times best-selling author of “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes theBorowitz Report, a satirical column on the news, for newyorker.com.
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