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“Artemenko said he was put into contact with Cohen by Felix Sater, a Russian-American business associate of Trump’s who pleaded guilty in a mafia-connected racketeering case in 1998.” (RFERL, see below)

“Mr. Sater, who was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in New York, served as an executive at a firm called Bayrock Group, two floors below the Trump Organization in Trump Tower, and was later a senior adviser to Mr. Trump” https://nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html

Cohen lives in Trump Park Avenue, according to the NYT. He “joined the Trump Organization in 2007 as special counsel, he has worked on many deals, including a Trump-branded tower in the republic of Georgia and a short-lived mixed martial arts venture starring a Russian fighter.” https://nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html
Trump Tower and Trump Park Ave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Park_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower
Green Acres (vs. 5th Ave “Penthouse View”): http://youtu.be/umS3XM3xAPk

From: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-trump-cohen-plan-russia-sanctions/28320083.html: “Trump Associates Reportedly Facilitated Back-Channel Ukraine Peace Plan February 20, 2017 RFE/RL

U.S. lawyer Michael Cohen says he submitted a document from an opposition Ukrainian lawmaker to former national security adviser Michael Flynn


An exclusive report in The New York Times says a lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump has helped a pro-Russia opposition Ukrainian lawmaker submit to Trump’s administration a proposed alternative peace plan for the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on February 20 that the report was “absurd” and that Moscow had no knowledge of the purported peace plan.

According to the February 19 Times report, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen submitted the plan to former national security adviser Michael Flynn about one week before Flynn resigned over allegations that he misinformed the administration about the nature of his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

Cohen — who has no foreign-policy experience — is himself under investigation by the FBI for possible connections with Russian intelligence. He denies the allegations.

The plan was created by Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Andriy Artemenko, who claims to have documents proving corruption by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

It called for Russia to withdraw its forces from eastern Ukraine and for Ukraine to hold a referendum on leasing the region of Crimea to Russia for a period of 50 or 100 years. Moscow seized and illegally Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

According to The New York Times report, Artemenko’s plan outlines “a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.”

Artemenko told The New York Times that the primary goal of his plan was to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

He said the secondary goal was to improve relations between the United States and Russia.

“If I could achieve both in one stroke, it would be a home run,” Artemenko told the newspaper.

Artemenko also said that his plan has been encouraged by senior Russian officials.

Dmitry Peskov denied that Russia had any knowledge of the plan. He repeated the Kremlin’s assertions that Russia has no military forces in eastern Ukraine, despite strong evidence to the contrary.

Peskov also said Russia will not, under any circumstances, discuss the status of Crimea.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Peskov said. “How can Russia lease its own region to itself?”

Artemenko said he was put into contact with Cohen by Felix Sater, a Russian-American business associate of Trump’s who pleaded guilty in a mafia-connected racketeering case in 1998.

Cohen told The New York Times that he personally left Artemenko’s proposal in Flynn’s office while Flynn was still serving as Trump’s national security adviser.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaly, criticized Artemenko’s initiative — saying the opposition lawmaker was “not entitled to present any alternative peace plans on behalf of Ukraine.”

More than 9,750 people have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed separatists since April 2014. With reporting by The New York Times” http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-trump-cohen-plan-russia-sanctions/28320083.html (Emphasis our own.) EVEN IF POROSHENKO WERE CORRUPT IT DOESN’T GIVE EITHER RUSSIA OR TRUMP THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE ITS GOVERNMENT. IF HE IS CORRUPT THEN THEY CAN IMPEACH HIM. RUSSIA HAS MORE LAND AREA THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. IT DOESN’T NEED MORE! Poroshenko and Panama Papers: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/218555.pdf

Another Russian inhabitant of a Trump building – Trump Parc on 6th Ave in Manhattan; Trump donor, and who has oil, including Rosneft, and possibly mafia ties, Kukes: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/kukes-russian-oil-magnate-with-ties-to-putin-and-cheney-gave-almost-300000-to-trump/

Page 30 from the Trump Intelligence Allegations Discusses Cohen, Rosneft, etc . It is possible that some of the allegations are true, and some not. This page makes sense. Recall that now Sec. of State Rex Tillerson’s Exxon Mobil had planned to create a mega-cartel with Rosneft and Rosneft and Exxon lost billions from the sanctions. Notice that Cohen’s father-in-law is allegedly involved in Russian Real Estate development.
Trump Russia Allegations Cohen, Cohen father-in-law, Rosneft
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html (Red boxes added).

The question has been raised if the 19% above is the same as this:
“RPT-INSIGHT-How Russia sold its oil jewel — without saying who bought it Posted: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 03:51:27 -0500 MOSCOW/LONDON/MILAN, Jan 24 (Reuters) – More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatisations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn’t possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it.” http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/basicmaterialsNews/~3/R2jyoa8GyMg/russia-rosneft-privatisation-repeat-insi-idUSL5N1FF1X4

“For America’s Sake, We Need Answers about Russia. Now.
Donald Trump’s embrace of Russia and Vladimir Putin and that country’s interference with our election could drag democracy to an early grave“, by Michael Winship, Published on Monday, February 13, 2017, raised the question of if this is the same 19.5% mentioned in the alleged intell: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/for-americas-sake-we-need-answers-about-russia-now-including-rosneft-exxonmobil-and-tillerson/

Sater seems to have turned state’s witness and his case was sealed!

News Releases on behalf of Sater himself:
Feb 17, 2015, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/felix-sater-statement-on-loretta-lynch-nomination-300037102.html
“The lawsuit notes that, “Kriss and Oberlander stole privileged and judicially-sealed documents, including a sealed government cooperation agreement and attached some of these documents to a publicly-filed complaint,…” http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ny-real-estate-executive-jody-kriss-sued-in-new-york-supreme-court-300342311.html (So, he appears to be admitting that documents attached to the Bayrock lawsuit are true!)

Against Sater, “Bayrock Case”, July 14, 2016: “… A Manhattan judge has unsealed a civil tax fraud case brought in behalf of New York State against associates of Donald Trump. The suit accuses convicted racketeer and Felix Sater, Bayrock Group, and prominent law firms of conspiring to launder as much as $250 million dollars of profit on Trump projects Bayrock was co-developing out of the country in a scheme to evade $100 million dollars of state and federal income tax….
found here http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ny-attorney-general-green-lights-250-million-tax-fraud-prosecution-of-trump-projects-300298935.html and as reblogged here: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/ny-attorney-general-green-lights-250-million-tax-fraud-prosecution-of-trump-projects/

“Nomination of Loretta E. Lynch to be Attorney General of the United States Questions for the Record Submitted February 9, 2015
QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR HATCH

1. On April 25, 2013, Professor Paul Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding implementation of crime victims’ rights statutes. These include the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. §3663A, and the Crime Victims Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. §3771, both of which I helped to enact. He suggested that your office had failed to follow these statutes in a sealed case involving a racketeering defendant was had cooperated with the government. Specifically, he cited documents appearing to show that your office failed to notify victims of the sentencing in that case and had arranged for the racketeer to keep the money he had stolen from victims, even though the law makes restitution mandatory. Please explain in detail how your office protected the rights of crime victims in this case and, in particular, how it complied with the mandatory restitution provisions of these two statutes.

RESPONSE: The defendant in question, Felix Sater, provided valuable and sensitive information to the government during the course of his cooperation, which began in or about December 1998. For more than 10 years, he worked with prosecutors from my Office, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and law enforcement agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies, providing information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra. For that reason, his case was initially sealed.

During my most recent tenure as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, the Office’s only activity related to this matter was to address whether certain materials should remain sealed. My Office’s position has consistently been upheld by the courts.

The initial sealing of the records related to Sater—which pre-dated my tenure as United States Attorney—occurred by virtue of a cooperation agreement under which Sater pled guilty and agreed to serve as a government witness. In 2013, following proceedings before United States District Judge I. Leo Glasser of the Eastern District of New York, roughly three-fourths of the materials in this case were unsealed. At this point, the majority of the materials that remain sealed go to the heart of the nature of Sater’s cooperation in several highly sensitive matters. Judge Glasser has ruled that these remaining materials should remain sealed on the basis of, among other things, the “safety of persons or property” and the “integrity of government investigation and law enforcement interests.”

In addition to Judge Glasser’s 2013 ruling, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals twice rejected efforts to reconsider the decision to keep certain materials sealed in this case. The judges reviewing Judge Glasser’s order concluded that “given the extent and gravity of Sater’s cooperation,” continued sealing of select materials was appropriate. In a separate instance, the court went out of its way to warn the plaintiffs behind the lawsuit to cease any further “frivolous” motions or else risk court-imposed sanctions. Finally, just last month, the Supreme Court declined to hear any further arguments from the parties behind this lawsuit.

In terms of restitution, there has been speculation that my Office pursues restitution from cooperating defendants differently than it does from other defendants. It does not. With respect to Sater’s case, the information in the record that concerns the issue of restitution remains under seal. As a matter of practice, however, the prosecutors in my Office work diligently to secure all available restitution for victims, whether the defendants convicted in their cases cooperate with the government or not. In fact, since June 2010, in EDNY cases, judges have imposed nearly two billion dollars in restitution to individual and government victims….” (Emphasis our own.)