Trump lawyer denies Moscow Trump Tower plan was leverage to get boss elected

Leaked emails show one of Donald Trump's associates last year advocated enlisting Vladimir Putin to get Trump elected, using a real estate deal as payback.

In messages seen by the New York Times, Russian immigrant Felix Sater, pressed Trump attorney Michael Cohen to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, claiming he "will get Putin in on this program and we will get Donald elected".

"Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it," Slater wrote, adding: "I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Cohen has denied the building project, which was shelved in early 2016, was related "in any way" to Trump's campaign, "though the developments appear to contradict Trump's vehement denials of any such business connections to Russia in the past", says CNN.

The attorney told the broadcaster he had discussed the tower proposal with Trump on three occasions and also admitted sending Kremlin spokesman Dimity Peskov "an email that went unanswered that was solely regarding a real estate deal and nothing more".

Cohen denied the proposed deal had anything to do with Trump's presidential ambitions - but "the emails extend a lengthening list of contacts between the campaign and people with apparent connections to Russian leadership", says The Independent.

The Times says the emails also show that, "from the earliest months of Trump's campaign, some of his associates viewed close ties with Moscow as a political advantage".

US intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election and investigators now want to know whether anyone on the Trump team was involved in the process.

This has prompted the former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller to expand the scope of his investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia to cover potential business dealings and conflicts-of-interests between the Trump Organisation and Moscow.

However, even as the probe intensifies, Republicans are calling for a time limit. Florida Republican Ron DeSantis has filed an amendment to the House spending bill that would prevent funding for the probe beyond 180 days after the measure passes Congress.

In a statement released by his office, DeSantis said he was concerned the Department of Justice investigation is "irresponsibly open-ended".

The effort to curtail the Mueller probe "comes only weeks after bipartisan bills in the Senate have been introduced to stop President Trump from being able to dismiss Mueller", reports USA Today.

Trump cannot technically fire the special counsel who was appointed through the Justice Department, but he could appoint a new attorney general who could.