Ukraine had to pay $400,000 to talk to President Trump?
US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is accused of receiving a secret payment of $400,000 to arrange negotiations between Mr. Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko last year.
The above information was published by the British media agency BBC on May 23. This newspaper quoted anonymous sources in Kiev revealing that the secret money was paid by intermediaries on behalf of President Poroshenko.
However, the BBC did not mention whether President Trump knew about the bribe to lawyer Cohen.
US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen (center), is being investigated for tax evasion and campaign law violations. Photo: Reuters |
Asked by Reuters about the information, attorney Cohen confirmed via text message: “The story is completely false.” Meanwhile, the White House has yet to make any comments.
In an emailed statement to Reuters, President Poroshenko's office also stressed that the information was false: "It is a complete lie, a fake."
On June 20, 2017, Ukrainian President Poroshenko had a brief meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump, after he had previously held separate discussions with Vice President Mike Pence.
After the meeting with the White House boss, President Poroshenko told the media that he was very satisfied with the meeting, which he said was “full and detailed”.
President Poroshenko has always wanted to meet his counterpart Trump because of what happened during the time when Mr. Trump was the Republican candidate for the 2016 election. According to the BBC, some Ukrainian sources said that President Poroshenko, who at that time believed that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would surely win, ordered the disclosure of a document denouncing Paul Manafort - the campaign manager of candidate Donald Trump - receiving millions of dollars from pro-Russian interest groups in Ukraine. Just a few days later, Mr. Manafort resigned.
A week after President Poroshenko returned home from his meeting with his counterpart Trump, the Ukrainian National Bureau of Corruption Investigation announced that it was no longer investigating the Manafort case.
Mr. Cohen - President Trump's personal lawyer - is being investigated for tax evasion, bank fraud, and election law violations related to the money that adult film star Stormy Daniels accused him of using to "silence" her about her relationship with Mr. Trump.
