Moscow Skyscraper Talks Continued Through ‘the Day I Won,’ Trump Is Said to Acknowledge

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The new timetable means that Mr. Trump was seeking a deal at the time he was calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. He was seeking a deal when he gave interviews questioning the legitimacy of NATO, a favorite talking point of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. And he was seeking a deal when, in July 2016, he called on Russia to release hacked Democratic emails that Mr. Putin’s government was rumored at the time to have stolen.

The Trump Tower Moscow discussions were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won,” Mr. Giuliani quoted Mr. Trump as saying during an interview with The New York Times.

Like so many other threads of the Russia saga, the story that the president’s aides have told about the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations has changed repeatedly. First, they said that the discussions never moved beyond their infancy, barely involved Mr. Trump, and ended well before the Republican primaries. Then, when Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress about the Tower negotiations, the special counsel’s office revealed they extended at least until the middle of 2016.

When — and even if — the discussions officially ended remains unclear, and Mr. Giuliani did not provide clarity.

Even after Mr. Trump secured a surprise victory in November 2016 — and as evidence was mounting that the Russians had carried out a sophisticated campaign to disrupt the presidential election — Mr. Trump’s top aides took part in numerous meetings and phone conversations with Russians that have been a focus of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, met with the head of a Russian bank under sanctions and asked Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak, whether Mr. Trump’s aides could use phone lines at the Russian embassy to communicate with Moscow during the presidential transition. Michael T. Flynn, who would become President Trump’s first national security adviser, discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak numerous times in December 2016 as President Obama punished Russia for its campaign of election interference.

In late 2015, months after Mr. Trump announced his presidential candidacy, Mr. Sater sent an enthusiastic message to Mr. Cohen bragging about how he would tap his Russian connections for the tower project and “get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this.”

“Buddy,” Mr. Sater wrote, “our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/politics/trump-tower-moscow-cohen-giuliani.html

 

[dherd]

trump who once cashed a 13 cent check, is telling us he knew nothing about a billion dollar hotel deal in moscow that he stood to make over $300 million dollars on.

yes, it's true - a 13 cent check
Finally, he sent those 13 respondents a check for $0.13. This time, only two people cashed the check. One was an arms dealer. The other was Donald Trump, whom the magazine identified as a “demibillionaire casino operator and adulturer.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-files-spy-magazine-prank/

 

[dherd]

The timeline of negotiations for the skyscraper is important because it shows that Mr. Trump’s company was involved in talks with an American adversary for a business deal through the general election, as he was demanding that President Barack Obama lift sanctions against Russia and urging its government to reveal emails from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee.

On Sunday, Mr. Giuliani told The Times that Mr. Trump had said the discussions around the proposed tower were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won.” In television interviews the same day, he said that discussions about the tower might have continued up until November 2016 — the month Mr. Trump was elected president.

But on Monday, Mr. Giuliani, in a widely issued statement, said that he was making hypothetical remarks.

Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty late last year to lying to Congress about the duration of the Moscow proposal; he had indicated initially that it stopped in January 2016.

It was not the first time Mr. Giuliani has reversed himself in his comments about issues related to the investigation of Russian election interference that is being led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Last week, Mr. Giuliani backtracked from another surprising assertion that left open the possibility that Trump campaign aides might have coordinated with Russia in its election interference in 2016.

“I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign,” he told CNN.

Mr. Cohen is scheduled to testify before Congress in an open hearing on Feb. 7.

Since that date was announced, Mr. Trump has repeatedly urged prosecutors and the media to investigate Mr. Cohen’s family. Lanny Davis, a spokesman for Mr. Cohen, has said his client fears for his safety and the safety of his family amid those threats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/us/politics/giuliani-trump-tower-russia.html