Josh Marshall's epiphany: Trump used Cohen because he was a conduit for Ukraine/Russia $$$

TPM, Trump brought Cohen into the organization not because he was a lawyer but because he was a conduit for money from Russia and Ukraine.


Cohen-ology Pays Off After All
By Josh Marshall | April 18, 2018 5:50 pm


Yesterday afternoon I had one of those epiphanies about a story I usually have no more than once every few years. It was partly triggered by details I put in this post about Michael Cohen. But it wasn’t about that alone. It was the sum of a dozen developments since the raid on Cohen’s homes and office last Monday. Starting over a year ago we focused our resources tightly on Cohen, Sater and an assortment of lesser capos and goodfellas in the Trump syndicate.

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Now, who’s Seth Hettana?

It turns out we at TPM have known and admired Seth’s work for years and years. He was one of the lead reporters – I think with the AP – on the Duke Cunningham scandal and wrote a book about it. A couple weeks ago I was emailed a press release announcing the imminent release of Seth’s new Trump/Russia book. I get a million press releases. But I had no idea he was even working on one. So I replied to the email and asked for a review copy which arrived a few days ago. I had not gotten around to looking at it yet. But in that excerpt, the reference to the El Caribe is followed by these two paragraphs …

I spoke to two former federal investigators who told me Cohen was introduced to Donald Trump by his father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who arrived in the U.S. in 1975. Shusterman was in the garment business and owned a fleet of taxicabs with his partners, Shalva Botier and Edward Zubok – all three men were convicted of a money-laundering related offense in 1993. “Fima may have been a (possibly silent) business partner with Trump, perhaps even used as a conduit for Russian investors in Trump properties and other ventures,” a former federal investigator told me. “Cohen, who married into the family, was given the job with the Trump Org as a favor to Shusterman.” (“Untrue,” Cohen told me. “Your source is creating fake news.”)

Shusterman, who owned at least four New York taxi companies, also set his son-in-law up in the yellow cab business. Cohen once ran 260 yellow cabs with his Ukrainian-born partner, the “taxi king” Simon V. Garber, until their partnership ended acrimoniously in 2012. Glenn Simpson, the private investigator who was independently hired to examine Trump’s Russia connections during the real estate mogul’s presidential run, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that Cohen “had a lot of connections to the former Soviet Union, and that he seemed to have associations with organized crime figures in New York and Florida – Russian organized crime figures,” including Garber.

Now, when I saw this, my jaw dropped. Admittedly, the significance probably needs some deciphering and perhaps you need to be a bit obsessed. But it connects together and makes sense of a number of key questions I’ve had. As I’ve explained many times here at TPM, Trump brought Cohen into the organization not because he was a lawyer but because he was a conduit for money from Russia and Ukraine. He’d been on a buying spree in the year or so before he was hired, buying up apartment units for him and members of his Ukrainian immigrant family. Trump wanted access to that spigot and more. So what Seth describes here – along with how Cohen got into the taxi business – is basically in line with my understanding. But I’d never realized Shusterman was such a critical player – perhaps even already a source of cash for Trump and, if Seth’s source is right, the reason Cohen got his job.

This brings a lot together – not least of which is fleshing out just what who Cohen’s money channel was based on. It also helps me understand, candidly, how a dope like Cohen got the gig. Quite apart from the money, it’s always been clear – he’s said as much – that Cohen has worshiped Trump since he was a high schooler – when Trump was king of the NYC tabs. It may not seem like much. But for us Cohen-ologists, it’s like the missing link, where the derp meets the wise guys and it all makes sense.

This all crystallized for me what I already knew or thought I knew and added another layer of knowledge and illumination. I’ll explain more about why in subsequent posts. For now, I strongly recommend getting a copy of Hettana’s book. It’s actually called Trump/Russia: A Definitive History. I plan to dig into my copy tonight. It’s apparently available for pre-order now and comes out in early May.


Lots of links & More Here:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cohen-ology-pays-off-after-all