According to filings with the U.S. Justice Department, American lobbyist Marcus Cohen spent over $80,000 on payments and expenses between February and June of 2019 “to elevate the profile” of then-presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky, receiving nothing in return.
Details registered by Cohen under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), published on Oct. 2, disclosed that the lobbyist paid Signal Group Consulting $30,000 on two separate occasions to provide services that included organizing private meetings with former Trump press-secretary Sean Spicer and Mike Rubino, a former Trump campaign advisor.
In his declaration, Cohen cites that his employer was Ivan Bakanov, who now heads Ukraine’s Security Service and at the time managed Zelensky’s presidential campaign, although Cohen claims Bakanov didn’t pay him for his lobbying.
Yet in April, six days before Zelensky won the Ukrainian presidency by a landslide, Bakanov flew to Washington D.C. and attended meetings set up by Cohen and Signal.
“They introduced me to the campaign guy,” Spicer said on CNBC, an American news channel, about his meeting with Bakanov – “I had every impression that (Signal) were trying to impress this client,” he added.
Rubino told CNBC that he didn’t know who Bakanov was until later and they didn’t talk much because of the language barrier.
Back in April, when it first came up that Signal and Cohen were lobbying for Zelensky’s campaign in the U.S., the campaign claimed it had nothing to do with the lobbyists and didn’t order their services. In August, Zelensky again denied hiring U.S. lobbyists.
According to Cohen, Bakanov was accompanied by Oleh Dubyna, former advisor to President Leonid Kuchma and former head of state-owned gas monopolist Naftogaz. It was only after Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty alleged on April 19 that Dubyna was Zelensky’s economy advisor and would become secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council that the Zelensky team said that Dubyna isn’t associated with the campaign.
Additionally, Cohen, together with Signal, was able to approach U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a number of former senators, and envoys of several U.S. think tanks.
According to Signal’s FARA report, during Bakanov’s April visit to the U.S., the company, most likely with their client, also met with Alexander Vindman, U.S. National Security Council director for European affairs.
Bakanov once again traveled to the U.S. in June, tasked with organizing a face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Trump. At the time, Zelensky was already president, and Bakanov was the head of the State Security Service.
Vindman was part of the U.S. delegation to Zelensky’s inauguration ceremony on May 20, which was headed by United States Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and also included Kurt Volker, special envoy to Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
The heads of three U.S. Congressional committees – Adam Schiff, Eliot Engel, and Elijah Cummings –released a memo transcript of text messages between Volker, Sondland, and Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak on October 3.
The release has become part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry launched by Speaker Nancy Pelosi following a whistleblower complaint stated that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the current front-runner for the Democratic party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential election.
According to the released messages, Volker and Sondland pressured Zelensky to begin investigations into alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and to force a new investigation into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas extraction company affiliated with Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Volker and Sondland promised to schedule a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Zelensky if the requirements were met, while Trump also withheld the $391.5 million military aid to Ukraine approved by the U.S. Congress to help sway Ukraine into cooperation.
“The president and his aides are engaged in a campaign of misinformation and misdirection in an attempt to normalize the act of soliciting foreign powers to interfere in our elections,” the report reads.
On Oct. 8, AP released an investigative report alleging that Perry also pressured Ukraine to change the leadership of Naftogaz, helping his former political donors.
Spicer and Rubino told CNBC that the Bidens were not mentioned during their meetings with Bakanov in April.
Pelosi’s office was also contacted by Signal, but the company didn’t receive a response.
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Cohen’s declaration raises questions beyond the fact that he reported providing services for free. The address provided as his Ukrainian office doesn’t actually host his office, according to Voice of America. He also lacks a U.S. address.
Cohen paid Signal $30,000 on April 30 and again on June 25, also reimbursing $10,000 Signal’s expenses, in exchange for connecting him to mostly former U.S. government officials. He told Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty on Aug. 8 that he paid for Signal’s work out of his own pocket and “out of good will” after briefly meeting with Zelensky in Kyiv during his presidential campaign.
Cohen said that he watched Zelensky’s TV series on Netflix where Zelensky portrayed a school teacher who became the Ukrainian president, before actually becoming the president through the show’s success, and Cohen told Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty that he liked Zelensky’s stance on corruption.
According to Cohen’s FARA, he first traveled to Ukraine in February, and his frequent travel to the country ended in June, just a couple of weeks after Zelensky took office.
“Registrant hired Signal a government affairs firm, to propose and execute a public relations and government affairs program, including outreach to U.S. government officials, U.S. media, and U.S. think tanks for meetings with agents of the Zelensky campaign who were traveling to the U.S. for three days shortly before Zelensky’s election, and attended some of those meetings,” Cohen’s FARA reads.
The document also writes that Cohen “provided internal advice to the Zelensky campaign (and, post-election, to representatives of the President’s office) on proposed and actual interactions with the U.S. government.”
Bakanov did not answer the Kyiv Post’s request for comment on whether Cohen continued working for the president’s administration after Zelensky was elected and what Cohen received in return.
