2583/5000 Trump company seeks Moscow real estate deal during Prez surveys: report
Washington: The Donald Trump company was conducting a real estate deal in Moscow while running for the US president in late 2015 and early 2016, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The Post’s report cited people familiar with the proposal and the records seen by Trump Organization lawyers.
The newspaper said investors and the Trump company had signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow but the project, which lacked land and permits, was abandoned in late January 2016, just before presidential primaries of the United States, familiar with the proposal.
The White House initially referred to Reuters’s questions to Ty Cobb, a White House special adviser, and later to the Trump Organization, or immediately responded to a request for comment.
The Washington Post report comes amid investigations by an independent special council and congressional committees to determine whether Trump campaign advisers collaborated with Moscow to influence the 2016 US elections. Trump and the Russian government have denied any connivance.
In July 2016, Trump denied commercial connections with Russia and said on Twitter: “For the record, I have zero investments in Russia.” He told a press conference the next day: “I have nothing to do with Russia.”
Discussions on the Moscow project began in earnest in September 2015, the Washington Post said, citing informed people about the deal. An unidentified investor planned to build the project and, under a licensing agreement, put Trump’s name on it. However, it was unclear how involved or conscious Trump was in his company’s negotiations, the paper reported.
Before the project was abandoned, a Russian-born real estate developer urged Trump to visit Moscow to promote the proposal and suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might say “great things” about Trump, according to the report, quoting informed people In the correspondence.
Trump, who was elected in November 2016, never went to Moscow, the paper said.
Details of the proposed agreement were contained in a batch of e-mails to be delivered shortly to congressional investigators, the report said.
