Many news organizations are reporting the deeper connections which existed between Donald Trump’s businesses and Russia–even during the campaign for the White House.
The top takeaway: Trump’s business associates — in the midst of the presidential campaign — were actively trying to make deals in Russia.
- The New York Times: “A business associate of President Trump promised in [November 2015] to engineer a real estate deal with the aid of the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, that he said would help Mr. Trump win the presidency… ‘Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,’ [Felix] Sater wrote in an email. ‘I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.’”
- The Washington Post: “While Donald Trump was running for president in late 2015 and early 2016, his company was pursuing a plan to develop a massive Trump Tower in Moscow, according to several people familiar with the proposal and new records reviewed by Trump Organization lawyers… Trump never went to Moscow as Sater proposed. And although investors and Trump’s company signed a letter of intent, they lacked the land and permits to proceed and the project was abandoned at the end of January 2016, just before the presidential primaries began, several people familiar with the proposal said.”
- More from the Washington Post: “A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company [lawyer Michael Cohen] emailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal spokesman during the U.S. presidential campaign last year [in mid-January 2016] to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress on Monday.”
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