Trump Would Have ‘Received Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars From Russian Sources’ For Trump Tower Moscow
Mueller’s filings on Friday showed that Donald Trump stood to benefit tremendously from the Trump Tower deal in Moscow, with him likely to have received millions of dollars in licensing fees and other transactions had the deal not come apart, according to Newsweek.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Friday filings, in which he recommended a hefty jail sentence for Trump’s former personal fixer, Michael Cohen, showed that Trump was abreast with the developments of the Trump Tower Moscow deal deep into the 2016 presidential elections. Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress previously when he said that the deal, which was reportedly being sought by Kremlin officials, fell through in January 2016 after he failed to get a response from a Kremlin spokesperson. But now he admits that not only did the talks on the deal extend all the way through to June 2016 — well after the primaries started — but that he had updated Donald Trump about the deal through this period.
It is plausible he lied earlier to safeguard Trump’s assertion that there had been no contact between his campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 elections, which we now know is not true. So Trump was asking Russia to interfere in the elections even as his very own fixer was trying to get a deal signed between his company and Kremlin officials for Trump Tower in Moscow.
“The defendant’s false statements obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues,” according to the court document.
“The fact that Cohen continued to work on the project and discuss it with Individual 1 well into the campaign was material to the ongoing congressional and SCO investigations, particularly because it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.”
As has been previously reported, Trump is believed to be “Individual 1” mentioned in the filings.
READ: Special counsel Robert Mueller's sentencing recommendation for President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen https://t.co/wjqW3onfpO
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This massive revelation flies in the face of everything the president has been asserting about his campaign’s contacts with Russia. It is now widely believed that Trump knew about his campaign’s overtures to Russia during the elections, and following Cohen’s sentencing, it appears increasingly likely that Mueller might table further proof of his family’s “collusion” with Kremlin.
Although the Mueller filings suggested a hefty prison sentence for Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer’s cooperation with the special counsel’s team seems to have aided the investigation massively, as was also laid out in the court document.
“The defendant’s assistance has been useful in four significant respects. First, the defendant provided information about his own contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and discussions with others in the course of making those contacts. The defendant also provided information about attempts by other Russian nationals to reach the campaign,” the court document read.
