As The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig noted, the request from Trump Organization Executive Vice President Michael Cohen to Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov “marks the most direct interaction yet documented of a top Trump aide and a similarly senior member of Putin's government.”

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Hold on, though. In a statement to congressional investigators, obtained by The Post, Cohen said he did not recall receiving a response from Peskov, and Trump's company scuttled the plan for Trump Tower Moscow two weeks later.

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So the American public should feel better about the Trump Organization's solicitation of Kremlin assistance because Putin's team totally blew off Trump's, and the project quickly went bust?

Cohen's statement might help the president push back against suspicions, raised by congressional and law enforcement probes, that he is uncomfortably cozy with Russia. But it sure doesn't help Trump's reputation as a world-class businessman who commands respect and gets things done.

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Recall that when The Post reported two weeks ago on a low-level Trump campaign aide's efforts to set up meetings with Russian officials, the bottom line was that the meetings never occurred. The aide, George Papadopoulos, tried at least a half dozen times to schedule sessions that would have included senior members of the campaign and the Russian government — even Trump and Putin themselves — but higher-ranking aides squashed the idea.

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When the New York Times reported last month on a meeting that did come together — the one involving Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian attorney whom the Trump aides expected to dispense damaging information about Hillary Clinton — the White House emphasized that the information proved useless.

To review: The Trump Organization wanted Putin's help on a Trump Tower Moscow project but didn't get it. A young campaign staffer wanted to coordinate a sit-down between Trump and Putin — or, at least, their top representatives — but was shot down. The president's oldest son wanted to obtain opposition research from a Kremlin-connected lawyer but wound up wasting his time.