Emails reveal Trump associate promised Putin support on potential Moscow tower
The New York Times revealed Monday that during the presidential campaign, a business associate of President Trump's pushed a potential real estate deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, asserting a Trump Tower in Moscow would "get Donald elected."
The Times acquired a series of emails between Felix Sater and Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, stemming from 2015. Sater told Cohen that he could win Putin's support for a Trump Tower in Moscow, which Sater said would boost then-candidate Trump's political prospects. "Our boy can become president of the U.S.A. and we can engineer it," Sater wrote to Cohen. "I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this."
The Washington Post had revealed the existence of the messages between Sater and Cohen on Sunday, but did not reveal their contents. Additionally, it remains unclear how aware or involved Trump was. The Trump Organization and investors signed a letter of intent, but the project stalled and was dropped at the end of January 2016.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
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.
Cohen told the Times in a statement that he considered Sater's boasts of influence with Putin to be simple "salesmanship." "I ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia," Cohen said. In a statement Monday, the Trump Organization said: "To be clear, the Trump Organization has never had any real estate holdings or interests in Russia."
Read more at The New York Times.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
-
Will Japan’s first female prime minister defy sumo’s ban on women?Under the Radar Sanae Takaichi must decide whether to break with centuries of tradition and step into the ring to present the trophy
-
Political cartoons for November 16Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include presidential pardons, the Lincoln penny, and more
-
The vast horizons of the Puna de AtacamaThe Week Recommends The ‘dramatic and surreal’ landscape features volcanoes, fumaroles and salt flats
-
US mints final penny after 232-year runSpeed Read Production of the one-cent coin has ended
-
Warner Bros. explores sale amid Paramount bidsSpeed Read The media giant, home to HBO and DC Studios, has received interest from multiple buying parties
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial uneaseSpeed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B dealspeed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
