Back-Channel Secret Ukraine-Russia Nothing Burger Plan Exposed by the Pathetic NY Times

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A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates, The title of the Sunday NY Times story reads. It attempts to tie Trump, his personal lawyer, a rogue Ukraine lawmaker, and a felonious businessman to a surreptitious back-door plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine. They admit they have no clue if the White House knows anything about this.

The plan includes dropping sanctions. Sanctions were a near-meaningless stunt pulled by the departing president to box Trump in and solidify the still unproven story of Russian hacking.

It’s a no-never-mind kind of story with no sources that one now expects from the NY Times. It goes like this: some loose cannon lawmaker in Ukraine, who wants the Ukraine President’s job, met with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen and a businessman with a criminal past who does business in Russia. The lawmaker said he had a peace plan.

What the Times doesn’t say, but the Washington Post does, is that Cohen told the lawmaker to mail it to then-NSA Flynn at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and that he did not deliver it to the former National Security Advisor.

The NY Times wrote:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was sent a hand-delivered sealed proposal detailing a way for the new administration to lift sanctions against Russia just a week before he resigned, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Included was a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia which was delivered to Flynn by Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. The plans were supported by Felix Sater, a business associate known to have aided Trump in previous dealings with Russia and Andrii Artemenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker.

Andrii V. Artemenko claims to have evidence — “names of companies, wire transfers” — showing corruption by the Ukrainian president, Petro O. Poroshenko, that could help oust him. Artemenko allegedly has support for his plans from top aides to Mr. Putin.

The Times doesn’t say how they know any of this. And who cares if this businessman likes the plans? They say “sent” but imply handed-off. Innuendo runs throughout the tale.

“A lot of people will call me a Russian agent, a U.S. agent, a C.I.A. agent,” Mr. Artemenko said. “But how can you find a good solution between our countries if we do not talk?”

The reader is not told where this quote came from.

Mr. Cohen and Mr. Sater said they had not spoken to Mr. Trump about the proposal, and have no experience in foreign policy.

The Times doesn’t cite a source for that.

Mr. Sater, 50, a Russian-American, pleaded guilty to a role in a stock manipulation scheme decades ago that involved the Mafia. Mr. Artemenko spent two and a half years in jail in Kiev in the early 2000s on embezzlement charges, later dropped, which he said had been politically motivated.

While it is unclear if the White House will take the proposal seriously, the Ukraine lawmaker’s freelancing has Ukraine officials infuriated. He is not free to act on peace plans.

The Times doesn’t explain who in the Ukraine is furious or how they know. They say they don’t know if the White House will take this seriously. They know nothing.

So there you have it. The lawmaker isn’t free to draw up peace plans. He’s some rogue president-wannabe. They don’t know a thing about the WH on the issue.

The NY Times apparently knows the three men met in a luxury hotel in Manhattan over martinis. They also say that Ukraine says this peace plan is at the expense of Ukraine since it includes an exposé of the Ukraine President. No Names are given. No sources. No nothing.

The NY Times claims Mr. Cohen said he would deliver the plan to the White House and it was left on Flynn’s desk. How do they know all this? Certainly not from Mr. Cohen.

The Washington Post came out with the same report by Sunday evening. They spoke with Mr. Cohen directly:

Cohen, speaking with The Post on Sunday, acknowledged that the meeting took place and that he had left with the peace proposal in hand.

But Cohen said he did not take the envelope to the White House and did not discuss it with anyone. He called suggestions to the contrary “fake news.”

“I acknowledge that the brief meeting took place, but emphatically deny discussing this topic or delivering any documents to the White House and/or General Flynn,” Cohen said. He said he told the Ukrainian official that he could send the proposal to Flynn by writing him at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Mr. Cohen said it wasn’t left on Flynn’s desk and he told the Ukraine lawmaker to write to Flynn himself.

What the NY Times and WaPo fail to mention is that proposals like this reach the White House in droves. It’s not unusual.

Flynn is gone in any case, and Cohen says he didn’t take the proposal. Cohen has no role in the White House and is only Trump’s personal lawyer.

As far as the sanctions are concerned, they were nothing more than one of Obama’s last-minute backstabbing operations to make any detente with Russia more difficult. Trump can lift the sanctions any time he wants and, if he does, we get to see John McCain’s and Lindsey Graham’s heads explode.


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