Spooky Connections

Michael Cohen

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16 minutes

Introduction
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney and Executive Vice President at the Trump Organization, is one of the most consequential figures in the legal saga surrounding the former president. For over a decade, Cohen operated as Trump’s “fixer,” handling sensitive legal disputes, suppressing damaging stories, and brokering deals, some legitimate and others deeply questionable. His career has traversed the worlds of New York real estate, political influence-peddling, and shadowy international finance, bringing him into contact with Russian oligarchs, organized crime-linked developers, and political operatives in both the United States and abroad.

Cohen’s 2018 conviction for campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud marked the first criminal case to directly implicate Donald Trump in illegal conduct. His subsequent cooperation with prosecutors, including as a key witness in the 2024 Manhattan District Attorney’s hush-money trial, made him a central figure in efforts to expose the inner workings of the Trump Organization.

Key Connections and Associations

Criminal Allegations / Convictions: Campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, bank fraud, false statements to Congress.
Roles: Executive Vice President and Special Counsel, Trump Organization; personal attorney to Donald Trump; owner of Essential Consultants LLC.
Associated Individuals: Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, Felix Sater, David Pecker, Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, Viktor Vekselberg, Evgeny “Gene” Freidman, Fima Shusterman.

Background

Early Life and Education

Born August 25, 1966, in Lawrence, New York, Michael Dean Cohen grew up in a middle-class family with Eastern European Jewish roots. His father, Maurice Cohen, was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who immigrated to the United States and became a practicing surgeon. His mother, Sondra Cohen, worked as a nurse and also came from a Jewish family with roots in Eastern Europe. Cohen was raised in a culturally Jewish household and identifies as an “agnostic Jew.”

These family origins connected him, both culturally and socially, to New York’s Eastern European and émigré Jewish communities, circles that overlapped significantly with the city’s real estate, taxi-medallion, and small business economies. These networks, which also included immigrants from the former Soviet Union, would later play a central role in Cohen’s business ventures and professional associations.

Cohen earned a bachelor’s degree from American University and a J.D. from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan, then returned to New York to practice law.

Taxi Medallions and Real Estate

Before joining Trump, Cohen built a fortune through investments in Manhattan real estate and New York City taxi medallions, an industry rife with political patronage and dominated by small, tightly knit networks, many tied to Russian and Ukrainian American communities in Brooklyn and Queens.

Cohen’s medallion holdings were co-owned and financed through business partners embedded in New York’s post-Soviet immigrant networks, which law enforcement has long linked to organized crime. His most notable partner, Evgeny “Gene” Freidman, known as the “Taxi King,” was convicted in 2017 of tax fraud involving $5 million in unpaid surcharges and later became a cooperating witness for federal prosecutors. Freidman’s operations were known to intersect with Russian-speaking organized crime elements in Brooklyn and Queens.

Cohen’s father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, was also a major figure in his medallion operations. Shusterman pleaded guilty in 1993 to federal tax evasion and maintained deep business ties in Eastern European émigré communities, some of which overlapped with the same networks flagged in FBI Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force investigations.

The taxi industry’s structure made it particularly vulnerable to financial abuse, functioning as a cash-heavy, closely held market ideal for laundering illicit funds, evading taxes, and using opaque private loans to move money through legitimate-looking enterprises. The FBI’s 2018 raids on Cohen seized records related to his medallion business, indicating prosecutors viewed it as part of the same criminal ecosystem that encompassed his campaign-finance violations, bank fraud, and post-Soviet money flows.

Real Estate Speculation and Early Ties to Trump-Branded Projects

Before joining the Trump Organization formally in 2006, Michael Cohen was already financially entangled with Donald Trump’s real estate empire through speculative property investments. In the early 2000s, Cohen purchased multiple units in Trump-branded buildings, including Trump World Tower and Trump Park Avenue in Manhattan, and Trump Palace in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, the latter being a luxury development marketed heavily to foreign buyers, including wealthy Russians and other post-Soviet elites.

Cohen often bought these units in all-cash transactions, a hallmark of both high-end property speculation and, in some cases, money laundering. Public records show that between 2001 and 2004, Cohen and family members, including his Ukrainian-born in-laws, spent millions acquiring units in Trump properties. His father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, also purchased Trump-branded real estate, and together they were involved in a pattern of buying, holding for short periods, and then reselling the units.

Investigative reporters, including those at McClatchy and The New York Times, have noted that these transactions aligned with a broader trend in Trump developments: attracting cash buyers from opaque corporate entities and foreign jurisdictions, especially from the former Soviet Union. Sunny Isles Beach, in particular, became known as “Little Moscow” due to the high concentration of Russian-speaking buyers, some of whom were later linked to organized crime or corruption cases.

This speculative activity served as Cohen’s entry point into Trump’s inner financial orbit. By demonstrating both personal loyalty (as a repeat high-value customer) and an ability to move significant capital into Trump projects, Cohen positioned himself for a deeper role. By 2006, Trump formally brought Cohen into the Trump Organization as an executive vice president and special counsel, with a portfolio that included managing real estate licensing disputes, development negotiations, and crisis response.

While no criminal charges were ever filed in relation to Cohen’s property purchases, the overlap between his real estate investments, his family’s cash-heavy business activities, and the Trump Organization’s attraction to post-Soviet capital remains a significant element in understanding both his value to Trump and the risk profile of Trump’s brand during this period.

Role as Trump Organization Executive and Enforcer

n 2006, Michael Cohen joined the Trump Organization as Executive Vice President and Special Counsel to Donald Trump, a dual role that gave him direct access to the company’s top financial and operational decisions. Cohen was not a traditional corporate lawyer; his value to Trump was his willingness to operate as a political fixer, deal negotiator, and aggressive enforcer across business, media, and legal fronts.

His portfolio spanned:

  • Negotiating real estate deals both domestically and internationally, including projects in Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia, often exploring opportunities with politically connected partners.
  • Crisis management, particularly in suppressing damaging stories about Trump’s personal life and business dealings.
  • Coordinating with Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg, who controlled the company’s finances and was later convicted of tax fraud, on structuring sensitive payments and managing off-the-books arrangements.
  • Working with David Pecker, publisher of National Enquirer and head of American Media, Inc., to execute “catch and kill” schemes. These involved buying the rights to damaging stories from individuals, most notably Karen McDougal, and never publishing them in order to protect Trump’s image during the 2016 campaign.

Cohen’s reputation inside the Trump Organization and among Trump allies was that of a feared loyalist. He was known to issue threats of litigation or ruin to perceived enemies and to pressure journalists, contractors, and former employees into silence. Former colleagues described him as “Trump’s pit bull,” a man who would take aggressive, sometimes legally questionable action without hesitation if it benefited Trump.

His work frequently brought him into contact with figures tied to organized crime, tabloid blackmail networks, and political influence operations. In handling Trump’s licensing deals abroad, Cohen interacted with partners connected to post-Soviet oligarchs, some of whom were under U.S. sanctions. Through Weisselberg, he had visibility into Trump’s internal financial arrangements, while Pecker provided a media shield for scandals that could derail Trump’s political ambitions.

The intersection of these relationships, corporate finance via Weisselberg, tabloid suppression via Pecker, and high-risk international deals via Cohen, created a tightly knit but opaque operational core within the Trump Organization. This network was instrumental in both expanding Trump’s global brand and insulating him from potentially career-ending revelations.

Crimes and Investigation

Hush-Money and Campaign-Finance Violations
In October 2016, Cohen formed Essential Consultants LLC, which he used to pay $130,000 to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. He also worked with David Pecker’s American Media, Inc. to pay $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal under a “catch-and-kill” scheme. Both payments were designed to influence the presidential election, a direct violation of campaign-finance laws.

Tax and Bank Fraud
Cohen underreported millions in income from his taxi-medallion empire, defrauding both federal and state tax authorities. He also lied to banks to secure loans, including a $500,000 home equity loan, inflating his income and misrepresenting his liabilities.

False Statements to Congress
In August 2017, Michael Cohen testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow had ended in January 2016, before the first Republican primaries. This statement was later proven false. Documentary evidence, emails, and testimony from Cohen and Felix Sater revealed that discussions continued well into June 2016, during the height of the presidential campaign and after Donald Trump had effectively secured the Republican nomination.

The project originated through Cohen’s long-standing associate Felix Sater, a former Trump Organization senior adviser, convicted stock fraudster, and FBI informant with deep ties to Russian organized crime and business elites. Sater proposed that the development could secure backing from Russian state-controlled banks, particularly VTB Bank, which was under U.S. sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. VTB’s chairman at the time, Andrey Kostin, was closely aligned with the Kremlin, and the bank itself was identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as an instrument of Russian state influence abroad.

Emails obtained by investigators showed Sater telling Cohen in late 2015, “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this.” Sater also arranged for Cohen to potentially meet Russian officials, including aides to Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, to facilitate the deal. In May 2016, Cohen even exchanged messages with a Peskov aide, confirming the Kremlin’s awareness of and potential involvement in the negotiations.

Had the Trump Tower Moscow deal proceeded, the project would have required Russian government approvals and financing from VTB or another sanctioned entity. This would have placed Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate, in a position where his personal financial interests were tied to the Russian state, creating a severe conflict of interest and a potential counterintelligence vulnerability.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report concluded that Cohen’s false statements to Congress were intended to minimize Trump’s connections to Russia during the campaign, reducing political and legal exposure. In reality, Cohen had continued work on the project into June 2016, signed a letter of intent, discussed possible travel to Moscow to advance the deal, and kept Trump personally informed of progress.

Cohen ultimately pled guilty in November 2018 to making false statements to Congress about the timing and scope of these negotiations. His admissions revealed that the Trump Tower Moscow project was an active pursuit well past the date he originally claimed, connecting the Trump campaign directly to a Russian government–linked financial deal during the election.

Russian-Linked Financial Flows
In the months following Donald Trump’s inauguration, Michael Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, became an unexpected hub for multimillion-dollar payments from corporate and foreign-linked entities seeking access to the new administration.

The most controversial of these transactions came from Columbus Nova, a U.S.-based investment management firm controlled by Andrew Intrater, the American cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg, a billionaire industrialist with close ties to Vladimir Putin, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his role in Russia’s malign activities abroad, including Ukraine-related actions. Between January and August 2017, Columbus Nova transferred more than $500,000 into Essential Consultants.

While Columbus Nova claimed the payments were for “business consulting,” federal investigators and journalists noted that the firm’s portfolio and activities aligned closely with Vekselberg’s interests. The payments began shortly after Vekselberg and Intrater attended Trump’s inauguration, where they met Cohen. Both men sat in VIP sections at inaugural events, and Vekselberg later faced questioning by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team about these contacts and the nature of the payments.

The Essential Consultants account also received $200,000 from AT&T and $1.2 million from Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant. AT&T admitted that it hired Cohen to advise on navigating the Trump administration during its high-stakes merger with Time Warner, a deal requiring Justice Department approval. Novartis said it sought Cohen’s guidance on healthcare policy under Trump. In both cases, the companies publicly acknowledged that Cohen’s proximity to the president was the central value proposition.

What raised red flags for investigators was that these payments flowed into the same account Cohen used to make the $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. The mingling of corporate and personal political transactions suggested that Cohen was effectively monetizing his role as Trump’s fixer, selling insider access to the White House to corporations and possibly foreign-linked entities.

Mueller’s report and related court filings outlined the risk that foreign funds, funneled through intermediaries like Columbus Nova, could serve as a backchannel for Kremlin-linked oligarchs to influence U.S. policy. Though Cohen was never charged specifically for the Columbus Nova transactions, the episode underscored his role in blurring the lines between legal consulting, political influence-peddling, and potential foreign lobbying, a mix that carried not just ethical concerns but national security implications.

Criminal and Controversial Associations

Felix Sater and Bayrock Group
Cohen’s professional overlap with Sater, a convicted stock fraudster and longtime FBI informant, tied him to Bayrock Group, a real estate firm deeply intertwined with Trump projects and suspected of laundering post-Soviet capital into U.S. developments. Sater’s connections to the Russian mafia and Semion Mogilevich’s network placed Cohen within proximity of organized crime.

Taxi Industry Networks
Cohen’s medallion operations with Gene Freidman brought him into a sector long monitored by law enforcement for ties to Russian-speaking organized crime groups. His father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, pled guilty in 1993 to federal tax crimes, further embedding Cohen in networks of Eastern European émigré businessmen with histories of financial misconduct.

Viktor Vekselberg and Kremlin Ties
Cohen’s communications with Columbus Nova executives coincided with high-level Kremlin outreach efforts. Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated whether these payments were part of a broader influence operation, though no criminal charges were brought against Cohen for this aspect.

David Pecker and AMI
Pecker’s AMI was integral to Cohen’s hush-money operations. AMI’s admission that the payments were made to influence the 2016 election, formalized in a non-prosecution agreement, reinforced prosecutors’ theory of a coordinated criminal conspiracy involving Trump, Cohen, and Weisselberg.

Israel and Private Intelligence
Though never charged in relation to Israeli companies, Cohen’s name appeared in reporting on Psy-Group, a private Israeli intelligence firm that pitched social media manipulation plans to Trump allies in 2016. The overlap with other political influence contractors remains a subject of journalistic inquiry.

Epstein Commentary
While no business or social link has been proven between Cohen and Jeffrey Epstein, Cohen has repeatedly commented on Epstein’s case, using it as a platform to call for transparency in elite criminal investigations.

Guilty Plea and Sentence

On August 21, 2018, Cohen pled guilty in federal court to eight counts: campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. He later pled guilty to lying to Congress. Sentenced to three years in federal prison, Cohen served just over a year before being released to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. A federal judge later ruled that an attempt to reincarcerate him over his planned anti-Trump book was unconstitutional.

Aftermath

Since his release in 2021, Cohen has rebranded himself as a political commentator, author, and podcast host. His books Disloyal and Revenge detail his years working for Trump and his decision to turn on him. Cohen testified in the 2024 Manhattan DA’s criminal trial, corroborating evidence that Trump personally approved reimbursements for the Stormy Daniels payment and ordered their concealment as “legal expenses.”

2025 Update

In 2025, Cohen continues to host his Mea Culpa podcast, interview political and legal insiders, and appear on major news networks. He provides behind-the-scenes insight to investigative journalists working on Trump-related corruption cases and maintains a network of political and legal contacts.

Financially, Cohen’s wealth, once estimated in the tens of millions, has diminished due to legal costs and restitution, but he retains income from book sales, media contracts, and speaking engagements. Public records show he still owns property in Manhattan and has stakes in small-scale consulting ventures.

Cohen’s relationships with former Trump allies are fractured. His communications with Weisselberg and McConney have ceased, and while Pecker has shifted to a cooperative stance with prosecutors, he and Cohen are not known to have reconciled personally.

Law enforcement sources indicate Cohen has provided information relevant to multiple ongoing federal and state investigations into political corruption, campaign-finance violations, and money laundering. Though he remains a polarizing figure, reviled by Trump supporters and embraced by some critics, his deep knowledge of Trump’s financial and political dealings continues to make him a sought-after witness.

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