One of President Trump’s business associates promised in 2015 to orchestrate a real estate deal with assistance from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he believed would help Trump become president, according to a report.
Felix Sater, the business associate who served as a broker for the Trump Organization, sent several emails to Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, saying he believed building a Trump Tower in Moscow would be beneficial to Trump’s candidacy for president, according to the New York Times.
“Buddy our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote in a Nov. 3, 2015, email to Cohen. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Sater also said he would try to get Putin on board with the real estate deal and, the New York Times reported, was envisioning a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Moscow.
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater, a Russian immigrant, wrote to Cohen. “We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way.”
Cohen told the New York Times that Sater’s messages were exaggerations.
“He has sometimes used colorful language and has been prone to ‘salesmanship,’ ” Cohen said in a statement. “I ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia.”
Toward the end of 2015 and into early 2016, as Trump was campaigning for president, the Trump Organization was looking into building a Trump Tower in Moscow, though the deal never materialized.
On Sunday, the Washington Post published an article regarding emails between Sater and Cohen. The Post reported that Sater told Cohen he would be able to get Putin to say “great things” about Trump and, in a November 2015 email, said he believed top officials within the Trump Organization would soon be celebrating both the real estate deal in Moscow and Trump’s election as president.
Despite Sater’s urging, the Trump Tower project was abandoned toward the end of January 2016.
The Justice Department, as well as several congressional committees, are investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.
The Trump Organization gave emails to the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, and several of those emails were obtained by the New York Times.
In a statement to the New York Times, the Trump Organization said, “To be clear, the Trump Organization has never had any real estate holdings or interests in Russia.”
