Donald Trump hedges bets.
“There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won,” Trump said Thursday when asked about the intersection of his presidential campaign and real estate empire, “in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?”
One opportunity he wasn’t prepared to lose: Trump Tower Moscow.
He said as much on Twitter Friday morning.
Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odds, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
….Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
This comes after Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress. He had, in fact, talked to a Kremlin official about the possibility of breaking ground on new property developments. Contrary to his earlier statements, Cohen admitted that these conversations took place during the campaign.
[READ: Michael Cohen’s plea agreement]
When other presidential hopefuls were thinking Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump was dreaming about putting the Kremlin in the shadow of one of his high rises. BuzzFeed reports that Trump personally gave the go ahead to move forward on plans for Trump Tower Moscow. He signed the letter of intent on Oct. 28, 2015, the day of the third Republican primary debate.
While plans for the tower would eventually collapse, BuzzFeed reports a detail that still stands out: a gifted $50 million penthouse for Vladimir Putin.
As Russian-born businessman Alex Sater explained to Cohen, in text messages obtained by the Washington Post: “if we have Putin in the penthouse every oligarch in Russia would want to live in that building.” The president’s lawyer was ecstatic, reportedly. The giveaway would pay for itself.
A clever business model, it could have become a constitutional crisis. When Trump promised to Make America Great Again, he was dreaming about business in Russia. When Trump complained about the U.S. getting bullied around the world, he was trying to build a relationship with one of our biggest geopolitical bullies. When Trump mourned the forgotten man in this country, his business partners were trying to land Putin as a tenant.
The whole thing is as baffling as it is inexcusable. Depending on the timing, these plans might completely invalidate claims Trump made during the campaign about having “nothing to do” and having “zero investments in Russia.” If he didn’t handle the plans directly, he delegated them to a subordinate. And if he didn’t have money at stake already, he was clearly ready to invest in the future.
So how could Trump say one thing to the public and the opposite thing to the Russians? His best excuse: Trump never thought he would win.
And if victory wasn’t possible, Trump simply saw his campaign as another marketing ploy to sell his brand. That’s better than the alternative, that Trump was actively pursuing a conflict of interest that would put both our economy and our national security at stake.
