![]() In July 2016, Trump told a news conference: “I have nothing to do with Russia.” Nine days before becoming president, Trump wrote on Twitter, “Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. Trump’s public statements about business dealings in Russia have evolved over time. Cohen said he lied to Congress to minimize links between Trump and the project and give the false impression that the proposal had ended before key early milestones in the 2016 race to determine the Republican presidential nominee.Ĭohen in his guilty plea said the project was discussed within the Trump Organization multiple times and that he spoke with Sater about obtaining Russian governmental approval as late as June 2016, after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. In his guilty plea, Cohen admitted he had lied to Congress in a 2017 letter that claimed he had only discussed the negotiations with Trump three times and that the project talks ended in January 2016. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project,” Cohen testified. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. In testimony last month to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen said Sater came up with a “marketing stunt” of offering Putin a free penthouse in the tower to drive up unit prices, “no different than in any condo where they start listing celebrities that live in the property.”Ĭohen’s House testimony portrayed Trump as keenly interested in completing the deal even as he campaigned for president. Trump had announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this,” Sater told Cohen in that email. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. “I know how to play it and we will get this done. Sater, who has served prison time in the United States for assault and later became an FBI informant on organized crime, assured Cohen in a November 2015 email he could get the Russian government to support a Trump property in Moscow. The letter of intent described a building in a Moscow business district with 250 luxury residential condominiums, at least 150 hotel rooms and a luxury spa. Expert Investment Co, agreed to construct the skyscraper, and the Trump Organization agreed to license its name and manage the building’s operations. Trump in October 2015 signed a non-binding letter of intent to move forward with a Moscow tower project with a Russian development firm. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo WHAT WAS THE TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW PROJECT? Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017. Russia has denied election interference.įILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller (R) departs after briefing members of the U.S. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction. Attorney General William Barr the report on his investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia and whether the Republican president has unlawfully tried to obstruct the probe. The project also coincided with Trump’s positive comments as a candidate about Putin and his questioning of U.S. intelligence agencies, was conducting a hacking and propaganda campaign to boost his candidacy. The project is significant because it shows Trump was chasing a lucrative business deal in Russia at the same time that President Vladimir Putin’s government, according to U.S. ![]() If the project was completed, the Company (the Trump Organization) could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues.” Mueller’s team said in a December 2018 court filing that “the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. Further information has come from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer who was instrumental in the negotiations, in congressional testimony and in his guilty plea to a charge of lying to Congress about the project. The special counsel has revealed in court filings numerous details about the project, which never came to fruition.
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