{"id":956,"date":"2019-03-16T23:12:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T23:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/?p=956"},"modified":"2019-03-16T23:12:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T23:12:27","slug":"trump-tower-moscow-was-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/16\/trump-tower-moscow-was-a\/","title":{"rendered":"TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW WAS A ……."},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump Tower Moscow was a\u00a0much larger\u00a0deal\u2014and\u00a0potential\u00a0crime\u2014than anyone has realized<\/a><\/h3>\n

Frank Vyan Walton<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong> (dailykos.com\u00a0 reprint)<\/p>\n

Community<\/p>\n

Sunday January 27, 2019\u00a0\u00b7\u00a04:30 PM PST<\/p>\n

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Planned location for Trump’s Tower on the banks of the Moscow River.\u00a0 (attribution: Sergay Alimov\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

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Despite Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0multiple claims that there was no \u201cTrump Tower Moscow\u201d deal, it appears that not only was there a deal, but\u00a0there were extensive plans in place to make it the largest building in all of Europe based on a\u00a0new set of documents and emails\u00a0<\/a>recently released by BuzzFeed\u00a0News.<\/p>\n

The plan was dazzling: a glass skyscraper that would stretch higher than any other building in Europe, offering ultra-luxury residences and hotel rooms and bearing a famous name. Trump Tower Moscow, conceived as a partnership between Donald Trump\u2019s company and a Russian real estate developer, looked likely to yield profits in excess of\u00a0$300 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tower was never built, but it has become a focal point of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump\u2019s relationship with Russia in the lead-up to his presidency.<\/p>\n

The president and his representatives have dismissed the project as little more than a notion \u2014 a rough plan led by Trump\u2019s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his associate Felix Sater, of which Trump and his family said they were only loosely aware as the election campaign gathered pace.<\/p>\n

But the plan was much more than just a basic idea and outline. Many\u00a0of the specifics had already been worked out including the architectural plans, the developer,\u00a0and the funding for the project.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s first recall that Trump has repeatedly lied,\u00a0starting in early 2016 and until recently,\u00a0claiming that \u201che had no deal, and no planned deals\u201d in Russia.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Cc_t9R15q68&feature=youtu.be<\/a><\/p>\n

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Conception design for Trump Tower Moscow<\/p>\n

Attribution: BuzzFeed News; WikiMedia; Getty Images; Trump Tower rendering provided to BuzzFeed News<\/p>\n

But as shown here, the Tower project plan had moved along quite far and was designed\u00a0to fit in right at the corner among the buildings shown above.<\/p>\n

Trump Tower Moscow had been planned to be the tallest building in Europe\u00a0when Trump attorney and fixer Cohen managed to gain the support of developer Andrey Rozov.<\/p>\n

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Relative heights for Trump Tower Moscow:<\/p>\n

Attribution: BuzzFeed News; WikiMedia; Getty Images, Trump Tower rendering provided to BuzzFeed News<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building design you sent over is very interesting,\u201d the Russian real estate developer\u00a0Andrey Rozov wrote<\/a>\u00a0to Cohen in September 2015, \u201cand will be an architectural and luxury triumph. I believe the tallest building in Europe should be in Moscow, and I am prepared to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the\u00a0letter of intent signed in October 2015<\/a>\u00a0by Trump, Felix Sater managed to also obtain a similar signed letter of intent\u00a0from developer\u00a0Rozov, which he forwarded to Cohen.<\/p>\n

Detailed architectural plans and designs\u00a0had already been put together based on the work of an\u00a0architect who had been selected by Ivanka, including a branded spa under her name.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Concept designs for Trump Tower Moscow<\/p>\n

Ivanka Trump<\/a>\u00a0recommended the architect for the failed Trump Tower Moscow project in an email to Michael Cohen, it has been revealed.<\/p>\n

Cohen copied Ivanka and Don Trump Jr on emails about the project in late 2015, and Ivanka replied suggesting an architect for the building, according to a person close to the Trump Organization.<\/p>\n

Ivanka was also due to have a spa inside the building branded with her name, according to documents linked to the project.<\/p>\n

Trump’s company was explicitly given the option to ‘brand any or all portion of the spa or fitness facilities as “The Spa by Ivanka Trump” or similar,” according to papers seen by\u00a0CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Key perks of the project included\u00a0a planned personal\u00a0penthouse for Vladimir Putin which would have been worth $50 million, based on an idea that was pitched by Cohen\u2019s partner on the project,\u00a0Felix Sater,\u00a0to Putin press secretary Dmitri Peskov.<\/p>\n

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A show-stopping apartment like that could have been marketed for $50 million. But as\u00a0BuzzFeed News reported<\/a>\u00a0in November, Trump\u2019s fixers planned not to sell it \u2014 but to give it away for free, to none other than Vladimir Putin himself. Two US law enforcement officials confirmed that Cohen discussed the idea with an\u00a0aide to Putin\u2019s press secretary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hope was that the lavish gift would help grease the wheels, and in the process entice more Russian elites to move in. \u201cMy idea was to give a $50 million penthouse to Putin and charge $250 million more for the rest of the units,\u201d\u00a0Felix Sater told<\/a>\u00a0BuzzFeed News in November. \u201cAll the oligarchs would line up to live in the same building as Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying both to Congress\u00a0and the Special Counsel\u2019s Office (SCO) when he claimed that this project had ended in January 2016,\u00a0when he attempted to email Putin\u2019s press secretary Dmitry Peskov in Moscow for help moving things forward, and falsely claimed that he received no response.<\/p>\n

That was a lie which\u00a0Cohen admitted in his sentence statement<\/a>, and he also admitted why he lied:\u00a0because Trump (Client-1) wanted it.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s false statements to Congress likewise sprung regrettably from Michael\u2019s effort, as a loyal ally and then-champion of Client-1, to support and advance Client-1\u2019s political messaging.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

It was obvious he was in CONSTANT contact with him running ideas, proposals, etc. by him for his approval.\u201d). political ties between himself and Russia, as well as the strongly voiced mantra of Client-1 that investigations of such ties were politically motivated and without evidentiary support, and (b)specifically knew, consistent with Client-1\u2019s aim to dismiss and minimize the merit of the SCO investigation, that\u00a0<\/strong>Client-1 and his public spokespersons were seeking to portray contact with Russian representatives in any form by Client-1, the Campaign or the Trump Organization as having effectively terminated before the Iowa caucuses of February 1, 2016<\/em>.\u00a0<\/strong>Seeking to stay in line with this message, Michael told Congress that his communications and efforts to finalize a building project in Moscow on behalf of the Trump Organization, which he began pursuing in 2015, had come to an end in January 2016,<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Michael had a lengthy substantive conversation with the personal assistant to a Kremlin official following his outreach in January 2016, engaged in additional communications concerning the project as late as June 2016, and\u00a0<\/u>kept Client-1 apprised of these communications.\u00a0<\/em>He and Client-1 also discussed possible travel to Russia in the summer of 2016, and Michael took steps to clear dates for such travel.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Cohen\u2019s attorney Lanny Davis made this point in a more direct way\u00a0during an interview with Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Trump and the White House knew that Michael Cohen would be testifying falsely to Congress and did not tell him not to,”<\/em>\u00a0Davis said.<\/p>\n

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Cohen has admitted under oath that Trump was kept in the loop on the project with at least 10 status meetings during 2016,\u00a0meaning that Trump was aware that Cohen would falsely claim the project ended in January, when in fact it went until\u00a0at least June.<\/p>\n

One can argue about whether this supports the claim that\u00a0Trump\u00a0\u201ctold Cohen\u00a0to lie to Congress\u201d as was also reported by BuzzFeed\u00a0in a different report, but\u00a0I think that\u00a0may be a\u00a0distinction without a meaningful difference.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cTold him to lie\u201d may have been done in an explicit conversation,\u00a0or it may have simply been implied by Trump\u2019s own very vocal denials\u00a0of \u201cany connection to Russia.\u201d\u00a0Common sense would mean that if Cohen went to Congress and told them he was still working on the Moscow project at least until the day that the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0revealed that Russians had hacked the DNC, that might be a bit of a political problem for Trump.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a\u00a0detailed timeline of events related to Cohen based on an extended timeline\u00a0compiled from what Mueller\u2019s filings\u00a0and the media\u00a0have revealed<\/a>.\u00a0Pardon its\u00a0length because\u00a0a lot has happened, but reviewing it this way with all these details makes the patterns of conduct and the overall picture far more clear and easy to identify.<\/p>\n