—
First a recap of the Trump Tower Moscow “Facts” already entered in the Official Record.
Trump lawyer says Trump's company pursued hotel project in Moscow during presidential race
by David S. Cloud, latimes.com — Aug 27, 2017
President Trump’s company sought to build a luxury hotel and condominium project in Moscow at the start of the U.S. presidential race and requested help from an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s personal attorney said Monday.
The attorney, Michael Cohen, said that he worked on the plan to build Trump Tower Moscow for five months after Trump declared his candidacy for president in 2015, partnering with Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman in New York who had worked with Trump’s company on previous deals.
[...]
Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on U.S. intelligence conclusions that Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign, and he has denied having investments there, though he acknowledged in May that he “had dealings over the years” in Russia.
Timeline of Russia Investigation
Key moments in the FBI probe of Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election
by Eugene Kiely , FactCheck.org -- June 7, 2017; Updated on October 31, 2017
2015
Oct. 13 – Felix Sater, a Trump business associate, sends an email to Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, about a proposal to build a Trump-branded residential and commercial building in Moscow. Sater’s email includes a letter of intent signed by Andrey Rozov, owner of I.C. Expert Investment Co., of Moscow, to build “Trump World Tower Moscow.” Sater, an American citizen who was born in Russia, tells Cohen to have Trump sign the agreement and send it back. The agreement would have given the Trump Organization “a $4 million upfront fee, no upfront costs, a percentage of the sales, and control over marketing and design.” Sater writes, “Lets make this happen and build a Trump Moscow. And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. That should be Putins message as well, and we will help him agree on that message.” (CNN would later obtain a copy of the email and the agreement.)
Oct. 28 – Trump signs a letter of intent with a Moscow-based developer, I.C. Expert Investment Co., to pursue “Trump Tower Moscow” – a licensing project in which Trump would be paid for the use of his name on a building in Moscow. (Cohen would later disclose the project in a statement provided to congressional investigators on Aug. 28, 2017, according to the Washington Post. “The decision to pursue the proposal initially, and later to abandon it were unrelated to the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign,” Cohen told Congress.)
[...]
2016
Mid-January — Cohen, chief counsel for the Trump Organization, writes an email to Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking the Russian government’s help “regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City.” (Cohen would later disclose his email to Peskov in a statement to congressional investigators on Aug. 28, 2017, as reported by the Washington Post.)
There’s a bit more on Dmitry’s back-story here. Funny how he’s Cohen’s go-to last resort contact.
[...]
The Trump Organization’s efforts to build in Moscow finally fell apart, in late January, 2016, because, according to the Post, “they lacked the land and permits to proceed.” But, despite this failure, Trump’s pursuit of the deal while he was campaigning on a platform of friendlier relations with the Russian President—a foreign adversary who controlled the deal’s fate—is scandalous, even without any other context. And additional details, unearthed this week by the Times and the Post, about the Trump Organization’s attempts to secure the deal make the scandal far worse.
As the Times reported, in September, 2015, Felix Sater, the longtime Trump Organization associate who brought the company real-estate deals—including Trump’s SoHo hotel, which was built by Russian developers—e-mailed Michael Cohen, who was then the company’s executive vice-president, pitching a Trump development in Moscow in terms that tied together Trump’s business interests and his political ambitions. “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected, ”Sater wrote. “We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins [sic] team to buy in on this, I will.”
[...]
These revelations present two obvious problems for the President. First, Trump was taking a policy position—one deeply at odds with his own party—that would benefit him personally. It’s a startling conflict of interest. Second, his statements and actions, and those of his subordinates and their associates pursuing the deal, may fuel the obstruction-of-justice inquiry against Trump that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, began pursuing this spring, after the firing of the F.B.I. director, James Comey. The more it looks like Trump had something to cover up, the stronger an obstruction charge would be.
[...]
Felix Sater, a Russian-born former Trump business associate and mob-linked felon who figured prominently in development of the Trump SoHo property in New York, served as an intermediary in the Moscow venture, shuttling documents between Cohen and the Russian development firm he was hoping to partner with.
[...]
According to the document, Trump World Tower Moscow would have featured about 250 luxury condominium units, 15 floors of hotel rooms, as well as space for commercial properties and offices.
[...]
If the parties reached a formal licensing deal, the Trump Organization would have received $4 million in upfront payments, including $1 million right away, according to the document. Another $1 million was slated for when a building location was approved, and the remaining $2 million would've been paid out when construction began or two years after the contract was signed -- whichever came first.
Trump's company would have received a cut of the profits from sales of condominiums and commercial space.
Even though the Trump Tower Moscow deal was already ‘on ice’ — Trump still goes to great lengths not to offend his ‘foreign benefactor’ — to the shock of most regular Americans ...
[...]
In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, which will air ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump doubled down on his “respect” for Putin — even in the face of accusations that Putin and his associates have murdered journalists and dissidents in Russia.
“I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them,” Trump told O'Reilly.
O'Reilly pressed on, declaring to the president that “Putin is a killer.”
Unfazed, Trump didn't back away, but rather compared Putin's reputation for extrajudicial killings with the United States'.
“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers,” Trump said. “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”
Yet his love for his real estate empire still courses through his veins, as indicated by his unusual detour today, during his Asian Diplomacy trip:
by Lindsay Gibbs, thinkprogress — Nov 4, 2017
[...]
But on his way back to the airport, Trump made another stop — this time at the Trump Hotel in Waikiki.
According to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump wanted to greet the employees and thank them for their hard work in making the Trump Hotel a “tremendously successful project.” This stop, which happened amidst a taxpayer-funded trip, was both unexpected and unannounced, according to reporters travelling with the president.
Kyle Griffin of MSNBC reports that this is Trump’s 97th day at a Trump property since his inauguration on January 20th.
Regarding Sater’s and Cohen’s attempts to “Engineer It” (by getting “Putins team to buy in on this”) — back in September, 2015 — well according to FactCheck.org Timeline, Putin apparently “bought in”, hook line and sinker:
December [2015] — Some social media accounts apparently tied to a Russian online propaganda operation start to advocate for Trump’s election. (This is also according to the DNI report issued Jan. 6, 2017. That report attributed its source to “a journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency,” a Russian online propaganda operation.)
Question: Why do you think Trump was still ‘kissing Putin’s ass’ in February of this year, as starkly demonstrated in that O’Rielly interview (and as described in the Ryan Lizza article)?
Is he still angling for a Trump Moscow Hotel deal — or more likely, trying to keep his prior Putin deals (and/or Putin-patronage Loans) far, far from prying-eyes?
Trump could clear up all suspicion here, by releasing his Tax Returns for the last decade.
Any bets on that happening? That’s about a likely as Donald saying a discouraging word about ‘his pal Pūt’.
