What role did Michael Cohen and Felix Sater play in potential Trump–Russia business negotiations?
Executive summary
Michael Cohen worked as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and intermediary on a proposed Trump Tower Moscow, coordinating with Felix Sater — a longtime contact who told Cohen he could “get all of Putin’s team to buy in” — and later joined Sater in pitching a pro‑Russia sanctions‑lifting plan in early 2017 [1] [2] [3]. Cohen later admitted he lied to Congress about the timeline of the Moscow negotiations; Sater has been portrayed as the deal’s main broker but his credibility and actual ability to deliver Kremlin approval were questioned by multiple outlets [1] [2] [4].
1. The basic roles: Cohen as lawyer/intermediary, Sater as dealmaker
Michael Cohen acted as the Trump Organization’s lawyer and primary intermediary on the Moscow project, engaging Russian contacts, emailing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and coordinating with Felix Sater on the proposal; Felix Sater—convicted in the past and long tied to Trump business circles—positioned himself as the broker who could find developers, financing and allegedly pull strings in Moscow [1] [2] [5].
2. Timeline and key evidence: emails, letters of intent and court admissions
Reporting shows Sater emailed Cohen in late 2015 claiming he could secure Kremlin buy‑in and even wrote “Our boy can become president of the USA” [2] [6]. A letter of intent to pursue a Trump Tower Moscow is part of the documented record and Cohen later told investigators the negotiations continued into 2016 — a timeline he misled Congress about and later admitted to lying over [1] [7].
3. The Loch Ness of Kremlin access: Sater’s boasts vs. outside skepticism
Sater repeatedly boasted to Cohen that he could “get all of Putin’s team to buy in” and that he would “manage this process,” framing himself as the conduit to high‑level Russian support [2] [6]. Some outlets and analysts emphasized Sater’s criminal past and argued his claims were exaggerated or that his actual access to Putin was dubious, questioning whether his promises reflected real Kremlin leverage or self‑promotion [4] [8].
4. The Ukraine/sanctions pitch: when business talk crossed into policy proposals
Beyond real estate, Cohen and Sater met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko and later presented a plan to lift sanctions on Russia — a scheme that would have shifted U.S. policy and included controversial ideas about Crimea — and they met or tried to present variants of that plan to Trump allies in early 2017 [9] [3] [10]. Reporting ties those sessions to efforts to influence sanctions policy at roughly the same time the Tower talks were active [3] [10].
5. Legal and investigative aftermath: cooperation, interviews and credibility issues
Cohen cooperated with prosecutors and the special counsel, admitting false statements about the project’s timeline; Sater was interviewed by congressional investigators and Mueller’s team and has faced credibility scrutiny because of his criminal record and pattern of boasting [7] [1] [4]. Investigators reportedly examined overlaps between the New York real‑estate dealings and the policy pitches because both involved Cohen and Sater and appeared to raise Russian interests [3] [1].
6. Competing interpretations and implicit agendas in coverage
Some sources present Sater as the central facilitator whose claims suggest a direct channel to Moscow; others treat him as a self‑aggrandizing intermediary whose past and loose language weaken his reliability [2] [4]. Investigative pieces emphasize possible national‑security concerns and the odd overlap of business ambitions with diplomatic proposals, while opinion and advocacy sites sometimes infer broader conspiratorial causation beyond what the documents alone demonstrate [3] [11].
7. What the sources do not settle
Available sources document emails, meetings and Cohen’s admitted lies about timing, and they record Sater’s boastful language and interviews with investigators [1] [2] [7]. However, available sources do not mention definitive proof that Sater actually obtained Kremlin approval for the Tower or that Cohen successfully arranged any meeting between Trump and Putin; they also do not establish that policy proposals pitched in early 2017 were implemented as a direct quid pro quo tied to the business negotiations (not found in current reporting).
Limitations: this account is limited to the documents and reporting cited above; assertions about motive or undisclosed communications are not present in those sources and therefore are not claimed here [1] [2] [7].