Emin Agalarov Dodges Robert Mueller Questioning, Once Said Trump Tower Moscow Deal Was Active In February 2017
Emin Agalarov, the real estate developer who is the son and business partner of Russian building tycoon Aras Agalarov — the developers behind the proposed Trump Tower Moscow deal — doubles as a Russian pop star, and was scheduled to open a four-city concert tour in the United States on Saturday. But according to a CNN report, Agalarov has canceled his tour with just days to go in order to avoid facing questions by Russia investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Agalarov has been a key player in several important aspects of the Trump-Russia collusion scandal under investigation by Mueller. As the Inquisitr has reported, it was Agalarov who initiated what became the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Kremlin-connected Russians promising information that would “incriminate” Democrat Hillary Clinton. When the meeting had concluded, Trump Jr. placed three phone calls, two of them to Agalarov.
In a February 2017, interview with Forbes Magazine, Agalarov appeared to say that the Trump Tower Moscow project remained a possibility even then after Trump’s inauguration, saying, “anything Trump related, I personally—I don’t know about my father at the moment—but I would be interested to pursue…. Or simply we could always build a building together.”
Agalarov posted a video Monday on his Instagram account announcing the cancellation of his concert tour in the U.S. but attributing the cancellation only to “circumstances beyond my control.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs5zmgZgm6v/
But if Agalarov — who attended high school in Tenafly, New Jersey, according to NorthJersey.com, would have been vulnerable to U.S. law enforcement upon entering the United States. His attorney had been negotiating with Mueller to determine topics on which Agalarov was willing to answer Mueller’s questions, according to CNN, but last week those talks broke down.
But the 39-year-old pop singer and real estate scion claimed that he is willing to answer any questions from Mueller but needed assurances that he would be not be arrested or detained when he was in the U.S., according to Bloomberg News.
“I have the feeling that the U.S. side doesn’t have good intentions — that they have a desire, given this anti-Russian hysteria, to turn me, a well-known person, into a circus show,” Agalarov told Bloomberg in an interview from Moscow.
In addition to being possibly detained by Mueller’s investigators, when in the U.S. Agalarov could have been subject to a subpoena by congressional committees investigating the Russia scandal.
“He has nothing to hide. He wants to tell his story,” Agalarov lawyer Scott Balber told CNN.
