Michael Cohen was paid at least $400,000 to arrange a meeting between President Donald Trump and the president of the Ukraine, according to a just released report by the BBC. That dollar amount could have been as high as $600,000, the UK news outlet reports.
After the meeting, which took place last June in the White House, a Ukrainian top law enforcement agency dropped its investigation into former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.
“The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine’s leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law,” the BBC report states.
“Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country’s anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.”
Manafort, who is under 24/7 house arrest with a GPS ankle bracelet, had his residences and offices searched several months ago.
“The tax and money laundering case against Mr. Manafort describes a complicated scheme in which he lobbied for a pro-Russia party in Ukraine and its leader, Viktor F. Yanukovych, and hid proceeds in bank accounts in Cyprus, the Grenadines and elsewhere,” The New York Times reported last year. “Prosecutors say he laundered more than $18 million, and spent the money extravagantly. A home improvement company in the Hamptons was paid nearly $5.5 million, according to the indictment. More than $1.3 million more went to clothing stores in New York and Beverly Hills, Calif.”