Page:Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election.pdf/353

 of the project and had numerous conversations about it, the statement said, "Mr. Trump was never in contact with anyone about this proposal other than me on three occasions, including signing a non-binding letter of intent in 2015." Fourth, although Cohen's outreach to Peskov in January 2016 had resulted in a lengthy phone call with a representative from the Kremlin, the statement said that Cohen did "not recall any response to my email [to Peskov], nor any other contacts by me with Mr. Peskov or other Russian government officials about the proposal."

Cohen's statement was circulated in advance to, and edited by, members of the JDA. Before the statement was finalized, early drafts contained a sentence stating, "The building project led me to make limited contacts with Russian government officials." In the final version of the statement, that line was deleted. Cohen thought he was told that it was a decision of the JDA to take out that sentence, and he did not push back on the deletion. Cohen recalled that he told the President's personal counsel that he would not contest a decision of the JDA.

Cohen also recalled that in drafting his statement for Congress, he spoke with the President's personal counsel about a different issue that connected candidate Trump to Russia: Cohen's efforts to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin in New York during the 2015 United Nations General Assembly. In September 2015, Cohen had suggested the meeting to Trump, who told Cohen to reach out to Putin's office about it. Cohen spoke and emailed with a Russian official about a possible meeting, and recalled that Trump asked him multiple times for updates on the proposed meeting with Putin. When Cohen called the Russian official a second time, she told him it would not follow proper protocol for Putin to meet with Trump, and Cohen relayed that