Volume V, Part 4, Trump Tower, Moscow

 

Remember the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on contacts between the Trump Campaign and Russia?  Part 4 deals with attempts to build a Trump Towner in Moscow and takes up 55 pages, from 407 to 462. As always, reality is never as juicy as your imagination, but some things in the report are suggestive.

Michael Cohen had no role in the campaign, but was responsible for negotiating the building of a Trump Tower in Moscow.  (The Mueller team indicted him for lying to them about it, but not for any action in connection with the negotiations).  

The Trump Organization had been attempting to build a Trump Tower in Moscow for decades and never gotten anywhere.  In September, 2015, about three months after Trump announced his run for President, and shortly after Cohen attempted to set up a Trump-Putin meeting at the United Nations, Cohen received two offers, with another materializing soon after.  The first was from Felix Sater, a decidedly sleazy character who nonetheless could not be prosecuted because he was an FBI informant and was able to give information on all manner of sinister activities, including cyber crime, al-Qaeda, Russian organized crime, and the GRU, i.e., the Russian Military Intelligence, which was behind the hack and leak operation.  (Two pages redacted).  Sater also had a business partner suspect of human trafficking (one page redacted).  He was also a longtime business associate of Donald Trump.

The second offer came from Georgi Rtskhiladze (I have no idea how to pronounce that!), a Georgian businessman and longtime Trump associate.  A third offer came in November, 2015 from Dmitry Klokov, a Russian weight lifter with no real business ties, who nonetheless attempted to broker a meeting between Trump and Putin.  Nothing came of the attempt.  There is not proof that these offers were related to Trump's announcement, or Cohen's attempt to arrange a meeting, but Cohen acknowledged that he had never before received two offers for the same building in the same location at (about) the same time (p. 422).

Cohen decided to go with Sater.  As always, Volume V goes over their negotiations in excruciating detail. The agreement was to require the Russian developer to finance and build the tower, while the Trump Organization would receive fees and payments for the Trump brand.  Many people have commented that that smacks of a sweetheart deal, giving Trump all the advantages and none of the risks.  The tower required approval from the Moscow city government, and probably from the Kremlin. The parties signed a Letter of Intent in October, 2015. Cohen reported that Sater told him that Putin was "interested" in the project, and that the prospective deal may have influenced Trump's glowing talk about better relations with Russia (pp. 430-431).  Trump also called his campaign "the greatest infomercial in the history of politics," suggesting that he saw his run for President primarily as publicity for his business ventures.  Sater, by contrast, said that he thought Trump could win and that Putin could sway the election for him with an endorsement (p. 432).  

Dmitry Peskov

By the beginning of 2016, Cohen started becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the project.  Difficulty in getting approval from the Kremlin appeared to be a holdup, so Cohen attempted to reach out to the Kremlin.  Further delay and confusion followed because the Kremlin is, of course, an immense, bureaucratic organization that Cohen had no experience in navigating.  Nonetheless, Cohen was eventually directed to the office of Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, and spoke to Peskov's chief of staff, Elena Poliakova. Cohen found Poliakova to be highly professional, competent, and extremely well informed.  She clearly knew about the deal and discussed the project in detail, including area, size, and square footage.  (p. 444).  Cohen commented that she had done her homework, and he wished that some Trump Organization assistants were as well-prepared.  Sater continued to attempt to set up a meeting between Cohen and Putin.

Efforts continued through June, but after the Republican Convention in July, 2016, it became that the project created too much appearance of conflict for a presidential candidate.  Negotiations ceased.

So, what are we to make of that?  Well, after Trump Tower Moscow had languished for years, if not decades, within three months after Trump announcing his run for President and even less time after Cohen attempted to set a meeting with Putin, two essentially risk-free offers came in, a most unusual circumstance.  Nothing is proven here, but it is suggestive.  Trump's eager praise of Putin came at a time he planning a Trump Tower in Moscow and appears to have seen his presidential campaign as little more than a public relations campaign for the tower.  There were initial holdups in approval by the Kremlin, suggesting that the Kremlin may not have been aware of the project, or the knowledge may not have worked its way up the hierarchy.  However, when Cohen finally got an inside line to a Kremlin bigwig's chief of staff, he found her to be extremely well-informed, suggesting that the Kremlin knew a whole lot more than it was letting on, and that knowledge of the project had made its way up to the highest levels.*

It all feels a bit unsettling, but without access to the Russian side of events, there is no way to know.  

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*This is not to suggest that Peskov or other bigwigs were familiar with the same level of detail.  One of the jobs of chiefs of staff is to know details so the boss can focus on the big picture.