Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in Mueller probe to lying to Congress about creating Trump Tower Moscow in Russia.
Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on Thursday threatens to unveil an explosive possible reason why President Donald Trump adamantly wants friendly ties with Russia — a long-sought real estate deal.
A court document filed by Mueller states that Cohen — Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer — lied to Congress at least three separate times about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow with Trump’s name prominently featured on top.
Cohen testified to Congress that negotiations to build Europe’s tallest building stopped in January 2016. But emails and other communications obtained by multiple news outlets, and now basically confirmed by Cohen, show those negotiations actually continued much longer: into at least June 2016, after Trump had already become the Republican Party’s nominee. And Buzzfeed News reported on Thursday that Trump’s company planned to give the $50 million penthouse in the building to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That matters, because it puts Trump’s praise of Russia and Putin in a whole new ligh t — what most animated his warmth may have been personal profit. What’s more, it’s entirely possible that Trump knew a close confidante willingly lied to Congress earlier in the investigation.
It looks like Mueller is intimately aware of those communications, too — and he now has Cohen’s full cooperation. That could spell trouble for Trump, because has long said he never had anything to do or at stake with Russia, but that’s clearly not the case.
Yet Trump seems unfazed. After the Cohen plea deal was announced Thursday, Trump told reporters that he never really cared about the tower project and was focused solely on running for president. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” he said, adding that “we decided — I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.”
But what’s clear is that Cohen not only spoke to Trump about the plans during the campaign, but that the Trump Organization was in contact with high-level Russian officials at the same time.
Put together, it’s very possible that Trump’s desire for friendly US-Russia relations has less to do with what’s good for America and more to do with what’s good for him.
What follows is a review about the many years Trump tried to do business in Russia, what Cohen specifically lied about, why he may have lied — and how it could impact the president.
Before we get to Cohen’s lies about the so-called “Trump Tower Moscow” project, it’s important to know this: The president’s claim that he never cared about building something in Russia doesn’t track with his many failed attempts to do so over 30 years.
“Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment,” Trump said in a 2007 deposition. “We will be in Moscow at some point.”
Let’s start from the beginning. In his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, for example, Trump wrote that he spoke with then-Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin “about building a large luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin in partnership with the Soviet government.” Trump actually traveled to the country that year to scout locations.
That didn’t pan out, but he kept trying. In 1996, the Trump Organization briefly explored a potential deal, but it proved fruitless.
In 2005, Trump’s company signed a one-year deal with the Bayrock Group to push a construction project in Moscow through. One of the real-estate firm’s leaders was the Russian-born and mafia-linked businessman Felix Sater. Working with Russian investors, Sater found an old pencil factory he believed could be destroyed and replaced with a luxurious skyscraper.
Sater and Trump grew their rapport during that time, Sater said during sworn testimony in an unrelated libel case. He also recalled keeping Trump informed about the deal’s progress.
“I handled all of the negotiations,” he said. He added that his interactions with Trump were “more of verbal updates when I’d come back, pop my head into Mr. Trump’s office and tell him, you know, ‘Moving forward on the Moscow deal.’ And he would say, ‘All right.’ ”
“I showed him photos, I showed him the site, showed him the view from the site. It’s pretty spectacular,” he continued.
That deal never materialized, but Sater would remain in the Trump Organization’s orbit. In 2006, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump traveled with Sater in Moscow. While there, Sater took the Trump children on a tour of the Kremlin — during which Ivanka even sat and spun around in Putin’s chair while the Russian president wasn’t around.
