Oh, dear. It looks like Ivanka Trump may have been a little more involved in the Trump Tower Moscow deal and trying to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladmir Putin than she initially let on. According to BuzzFeed, Ivanka was in touch with Russian Olympian Dmitry Klokov, introducing him to Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, during the campaign.
In November 2015, Ivanka Trump told Cohen to speak with Klokov, according to the four sources. Cohen had at least one phone conversation with the weightlifter, they said. It is not known what the men discussed over the phone, but they exchanged a string of emails that are now being examined by congressional investigators and federal agents probing Russia’s election meddling.
In one of those emails, Klokov told Cohen that he could arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin to help pave the way for the tower. Later, Cohen sent an email refusing that offer and saying that the Trump Organization already had an agreement in place. He said he was cutting off future communication with Klokov. Copying Ivanka Trump, the Russian responded in a final brusque message, in which he questioned Cohen’s authority to make decisions for the Trump Organization. Frustrated by the exchange, Ivanka Trump questioned Cohen’s refusal to continue communicating with Klokov, according to one of the sources.
Ivanka Trump, through her spokesperson, described her role in Trump Tower Moscow as “minimally involved.”
Ivanka Trump, who now works in her father’s administration, did not respond to questions sent to her personal email, chief of staff, and the White House. A spokesperson for her attorney wrote that Ivanka Trump did not know about the Trump Moscow project “until after a nonbinding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, and, even internally, was only minimally involved. Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not) the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards.”
Considering Ivanka has long been her father’s “right-hand woman,” it is strange she didn’t know Donald Trump had signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, one with an Ivanka-branded spa.
The agreement stated that the Trump Organization would have the option to brand the hotel’s spa and fitness facilities as “The Spa by Ivanka Trump” and that Ivanka Trump would be granted "sole and absolute discretion" to have the final say on "all interior design elements of the spa or fitness facilities."
What makes this even more interesting is something Rudy Giuliani said in one of his recent media appearances. During an interview with Sean Hannity, Giuliani warned that Ivanka Trump should be “off limits” for the Mueller investigation. He curiously dropped this line in his conversation with Hannity:
GIULIANI: Now, if they do do Ivanka—which I doubt they will—the whole country will turn on ‘em. They’re going after his daughter?
HANNITY: What about his son-in-law? They talked about him.
GIULIANI: I guess, uh, Jared is a fine man. You know that. But, men are disposable. But, a fine woman like Ivanka? Come on.
Very curious, indeed. Does Rudy Giuliani know more about Ivanka Trump’s Russian contacts? Here’s an MSNBC Hardball panel discussing that clip.
As Buzzfeed notes, there is nothing seemingly illegal about talking to a former Russian Olympian and introducing him to Donald Trump. But this is one more strange Russian contact that has yet to be fully explained. Seems safe to say that congressional investigators and Robert Mueller’s team are sitting on far more information than the public has previously seen.