NedNotes (not blog): Trump Tower Moscow Project; Trump Tower Meeting 'Lawfare' Summary of Senate Intel. Committee Report (Vol.V)

Hard National Security Choices
https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-reading-diary-what-did-senate-intelligence-committee-find  

 
 

SUPPORTMonday, September 7, 2020

A Collusion Reading Diary: What Did the Senate Intelligence Committee Find?
By Todd Carney, Samantha Fry, Quinta Jurecic, Jacob Schulz, Tia Sewell, Margaret Taylor, Benjamin Wittes
Friday, August 21, 2020, 4:41 PM

The fifth and final volume of the Select Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 election is an incredibly long and detailed document. At a whopping 966 pages, volume 5 alone is more than twice the length of the Mueller report, and it covers a great deal more ground.

It is important for another reason: Along with the shorter volumes 1-4, the Senate’s report is the only credible account of the events of 2016 to which Republican elected officials have signed their names. McConnell, in the same press release, echoes the statements of Acting Committee Chairman Marco Rubio, stating that “[t]heir report reaffirms Special Counsel Mueller’s finding that President Trump did not collude with Russia.”

It is a bit of a mug’s game at this point to fight over whether what either Mueller or the Intelligence Committee found constitutes collusion and, if so, in what sense. The question turns almost entirely on what one means by the term “collusion”—a word without any precise meaning in the context of campaign engagement with foreign actors interfering with an election. 

So rather than engaging over whether the Intelligence Committee found collusion, we decided to read the document with a focus on identifying precisely what the committee found about the engagement over a long period of time between Trump and his campaign and Russian government or intelligence actors and their cut-outs.

Whether one describes this activity as collusion or not, there’s a lot of it: The report describes hundreds of actions by Trump, his campaign, and his associates in the run-up to the 2016 election that involve some degree of participation by Trump or his associates in Russian activity.

One overarching note: There is a fair amount of overlap between this document and the Mueller report. But the Senate report covers a fair bit more ground for a few reasons. For one thing, it was not limited to information it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court, as Mueller was. Just as important, the committee included counterintelligence questions in its investigative remit—whereas Mueller limited himself to a review of criminal activity.

So the document reads less like a prosecution memo and more like an investigative report addressing risk assessment questions. This volume is an attempt to describe comprehensively the counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities associated with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. So it’s inherently a little more free-wheeling and speculative.

As we read, we summarized each section of the report in the order in which it appears. As of Sept. 3, the summary is now complete.

A. Paul Manafort

B. Hack and Leak

C. The Agalarovs and the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower Meeting

D. Trump Tower Moscow

E. George Papadopoulos

F. Carter Page

G. Trump's Foreign Policy Speech at the Mayflower Hotel

H. Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin

I. Allegations, and Potential Misinformation, About Compromising Information

J. Influence for Hire

K. Transition

L. Other Incidents and Persons of Interest

Conclusion

==================================

C. The Agalarovs and the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower Meeting, pp. 259-406

The committee next examines the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which the Trump campaign unsuccessfully sought negative information on Hillary Clinton from individuals linked to the Russian government. The meeting was precipitated by Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov and his son, Emin Agalarov, whom Trump knew from business dealings in Russia beginning in 2013. 

Before the report delves into the events of the Trump Tower meeting, it first provides a great deal of detail on the Agalarovs themselves and the nature of Trump’s past dealings with them. While the report’s account of the meeting itself is consistent with Mueller’s, this information adds important texture to the interaction.

The report pulls no punches on its view of the Agalarovs, who, it writes, “have significant ties to Russian organized crime and have been closely affiliated with individuals involved in murder, prostitution, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other significant criminal enterprises. Some of those activities have extended outside of Russia, including to the United States.”

Further information about Agalarov’s activities is redacted. But the report goes on to note that Aras Agalarov “has significant ties to the Russian government, including to individuals involved in influence operations targeting the 2016 U.S. election”—and “access” to Putin, among other high-level figures in the Russian government. 

This information is followed by several entirely redacted pages—but one unredacted paragraph notes that “in October 2010 when Russian intelligence held a celebration for the 60th anniversary of the GRU's special missions department, the event was hosted” at a venue owned by Agalarov. More redacted information follows a brief description of Emin Agalarov, who is a musician but also works with his father’s real estate development company. According to Michael Cohen, the committee says, a friend of Cohen’s warned him twice against working with the Agalarovs, saying they were “really rough.”

So the first point to bear in mind is that the Trump Tower meeting was arranged by a Russian oligarch with ties to organized crime and to Putin.

The second key point is that the Agalarovs had been cultivating Trump for some time. Trump met the Agalarovs in 2013 through efforts to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned, to Moscow. This alone is nothing new. But the report also suggests—without stating outright—that the event, including the involvement and support of the Agalarovs, was likely a Russian effort to gain influence over Trump.

The Agalarovs agreed to fund the pageant in what resulted in a $10 million loss for them, though according to the report, “Moscow was one of the most lucrative deals that the Miss Universe Organization had ever participated in.” The report contains an incredibly detailed tick-tock of events and interactions leading up to the pageant. It includes visits to seedy Vegas nightclubs, material on Trump’s personal relationships with various Russian oligarchs linked to organized crime, and stories of multiple efforts by Trump to obtain a meeting with Vladimir Putin—which, according to the president of the Miss Universe Organization, was highly unusual. 

Notably, the committee writes, “Aras Agalarov was personally involved in the effort to secure a meeting” between Trump and Putin. Though Putin did not attend the pageant or meet with Trump, he “reportedly sent a senior Kremlin official … in his place”—and the president of the Miss Universe Organization remembered Trump asking her to falsely say that Putin had attended.

As a taste of the sort of people Trump was dealing with through Miss Universe, the report describes:

On October 31, 2013, the Crocus Group and the Miss Universe Organization hosted a charity auction. The initial guest list for the event, which includes individuals with ties to the highest levels of the Russian government, military, intelligence services, organized crime, Russian banks, and Russian energy companies, among others, offers some insight into the Agalarovs' social and professional network in Moscow. 

Some of the individuals on the Agalarovs' guest list have participated in Russian influence operations targeting the United States and its allies, some have significant connections to the Russian intelligence services, and some are currently sanctioned by the United States.

Likewise, the report outlines Trump’s participation during his Moscow visit in meetings with top banking officials, including the head of Sberbank—which is subject to U.S. economic sanctions and is closely linked to Putin. Trump even wrote a personal letter to the head of Sberbank thanking him for an “absolutely fantastic job.”

The committee takes pains to document Trump’s stay at the Ritz Carlton Moscow—the subject of allegations in the Steele dossier concerning supposedly compromising video of Trump with sex workers. According to the report, Keith Schiller, Trump’s head of security, was approached with an offer to send five women to Trump’s hotel room one of the nights he was in Moscow. 

While Schiller told the committee that he and Trump laughed off the offer and the liaison never occurred, a conspicuous footnote leads the reader to question whether Schiller is, in fact, telling the truth: “Cohen has testified that, ‘Keith is the ultimate protector, and he was [Trump's] bodyguard, his attaché for many, many years. And he was the keeper of Mr. Trump's secrets. So, for example, if he was going to text a female, he would have Keith do it on his phone.’ Cohen has also testified that he has seen Schiller lie for Trump.”

The report also notes interactions on the Moscow trip between Trump and employees of the Agalarovs, Artem Klyushin and his wife Yulya Klyushina. The committee states that it has “significant concerns” about Klyushin, who “is a Kremlin-linked bot developer who has supported Russian influence operations on social media.” “The Committee assesses that he has provided social media influence expertise to the Kremlin,” helping spread pro-Kremlin propaganda in Ukraine in 2014. 

He [Klyushin] is also connected to “a number of Kremlin-linked online influencers that are of concern to the Committee,” among them Konstantin Rykov, who “likely collaborated with the Russian Presidential Administration regarding a Russian influence operation targeting France” in 2014 in support of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Much of this section is redacted. The committee states that it has “little insight” into the nature of Trump’s 2013 interactions with Klyushin and his wife.

Though Trump never succeeded in meeting with Putin during the 2013 trip, Emin Agalarov’s music manager, Rob Goldstone, recalled that Putin’s representative, Dmitry Peskov, apparently indicated that Putin invited Trump on his next visit “to meet with him, whenever or wherever that should be within Russia. And he actually said to him that, if he could, he'd like to invite him to the Sochi Winter Olympics. If not, at the next possible time that Mr. Trump might be in Russia he would do everything he could to meet with him.” And the Agalarovs provided Trump with a small gift and a letter from Putin as well. An included note from Trump Jr. to his father reads, “You are being sent a gift from Putin!”

Trump stayed in touch with the Agalarovs following the Miss Universe pageant, and the report’s description of their subsequent interactions lays the foundation for understanding Trump’s efforts to construct a Trump Tower Moscow. 

The Agalarovs and the Trumps began discussing possible real estate collaboration shortly after the pageant: Trump actively pursued a Trump Tower Moscow project, the report shows, and Donald Trump Jr. was closely involved. Trump Jr. and Emin Agalarov even signed formal, preliminary agreements on the deal. At some point, however, the negotiations petered out. Nevertheless, the Agalarovs stayed in touch with Trump, congratulating him on victories in the 2016 primary.

All this leads up to the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower, New York, which the Agalarovs set in motion.

According to the committee, the June 9 meeting was not the first time that individuals linked to the Russian government had lobbied potentially sympathetic Americans on the subjects discussed in Trump Tower. Specifically, in April 2016, Dana Rohrabacher, then a Republican congressman, met with a “close confidant” of Putin's in Moscow, who provided the congressman with documents on “a series of allegations related to U.S. Magnitsky Act sanctions legislation.” 

While these documents are not the same as the documents used by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during the Trump Tower meeting, the committee writes, “the organization and substance of the two documents are similar, and parts of the two documents are nearly, or completely, identical.” Apart from this, much of the section on Rohrabacher’s meeting and the Russians with whom he met is redacted.

The report next describes the players in the June 9 meeting. While it has long been public that Veselnitskaya “previously worked for, and remains in contact with, senior individuals in the Russian government,” the report’s language about her activities is more ominous than that of the Mueller report: The Senate writes that Veselnitskaya, along with another participant in the meeting, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, have “significant connections to … the Russian intelligence services.” Veselnitskaya has “close ties” to one-time Russian chief prosecutor Yuri Chaika, who “likely has been involved in Russian influence activities.” 

As to Akhmetshin, the report states that Akhmetshin’s ties to Putin and Russian intelligence services “were more extensive than what has previously been publicly known”—and “Akhmetshin has a history of allegations against him regarding hacking and the dumping of stolen information as part of influence operations.” The section of the report concerning Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin contains extensive portions of redacted information, and the committee states that neither person was “forthcoming” in conversations with the committee.

As with Trump’s adventures in Moscow, the Senate report contains a detailed tick-tock of the Trump Tower meeting and the events leading up to it. According to Goldstone, the seeds of the June 9 meeting were planted when Emin Agalarov reached out to Goldstone to ask if he could connect “the Trumps” with a “well-connected” 

Russian lawyer who had information “potentially damaging to the Democrats and Hillary”; in Goldstone’s recollection, Emin said that “my dad would really like this meeting to take place.” When Goldstone reached out to Trump Jr., the latter responded—now famously—"if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” Trump Jr. told the committee that “‘l love it’ is a colloquial expression he frequently uses to indicate being in favor of something.”

During this period, Goldstone was also reaching out to the campaign with invitations from the Russian social networking site VKontakte to set up an “official” Trump campaign page on the site to reach Russian-speaking voters. 

Though much of the information on VKontakte’s outreach is redacted, an unredacted sentence states that the committee has “extremely limited” insight into the motivation behind the outreach but that “targeting Russians speaking voters in the United States is thematically consistent with [redacted] undertaken by the Russian government in support of Trump in the 2016 election.”

According to both Manafort and Gates, Trump Jr. discussed Goldstone’s proposal for a meeting at a regular “Family Meeting” held daily in Trump Tower for “Trump family members and senior Campaign staff.” Trump Jr. and Kushner, however, said they did not remember this. Manafort and Gates both recalled Trump Jr. telling them about the meeting; Manafort told the committee that, as the report puts it, “Trump Jr. would not have invited Manafort to attend unless Trump Jr. thought the meeting would potentially be important,” while Gates remembered Trump Jr. announcing “he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation,” and described Manafort as telling Trump Jr. to be careful.

After a back-and-forth between Trump Jr. and Emin Agalarov—documented by phone records, but which both participants told the committee they could not remember—the meeting was scheduled, and Manafort and Kushner were invited. An email chain with the subject line “FW: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential” documents the invitation, but Kushner said he didn’t remember reading the email, and Manafort said he read only the first email in the chain.

The report describes:

On June 7, several days after Goldstone's offer of information to Trump Jr. and several hours after Trump Jr. confirmed the June 9, 2016 meeting with Goldstone, then-candidate Trump publicly stated, "I'm going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you're going to find it very informative and very, very interesting." That speech did not happen as scheduled.

Stephen Miller, who worked on the Campaign, told the Committee that the speech referenced by Trump may have been postponed due to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida. … This is consistent with Trump's written answers to questions from the SCO. The SCO "did not find evidence that the original idea for the speech was connected to the anticipated June 9 meeting or that the change of topic was attributable to the failure of that meeting to produce concrete evidence about Clinton."

So did Trump know about the meeting? Michael Cohen recalled:

Michael Cohen testified to the Committee that he was present in Trump's office when Trump Jr. came into the office and, in a manner that was uncommon, walked toward the back of Trump's desk and leaned over and quietly said, "The meeting. It's all set." Cohen recalled that Trump replied, "Okay. Keep me posted."

But Cohen acknowledged that it was “speculation” to connect this to the June 9 meeting and could not recall the exact date of the conversation. Meanwhile, Trump Jr. told the committee he did not remember informing his father of the meeting; Kushner said he had no “reason to believe” that Trump was informed; Trump said in answers to Mueller’s team that he did not remember if the meeting took place; and Manafort said he had never told Trump about the meeting.

The committee notes that both Manafort and Kushner prioritized the meeting with Veselnitskaya despite their busy schedules. The meeting quickly got off on the wrong foot when Veselnitskaya began speaking about Democratic donors whom she accused of failing to pay taxes in Russia and the U.S.—which Veselnitskaya’s translator told the committee he understood as a “carrot”—and then transitioned to discussing the Magnitsky Act and offering to push for lifting Russian restrictions on American adoptions if Trump would undo sanctions under the legislation.

Kushner left the meeting early, sending Manafort a text reading, “Waste of time.” According to Trump Jr.: “I think it became pretty apparent to me once they made that transition that this was a way for them to lobby me about some sort of policy. We listened for a few minutes, said it has nothing to do with us, we left. Rob Goldstone apologized to me on the way out. ... The meeting really wasn't about anything that he said it was going to be about.”

Likewise, another attendee at the meeting, who was present as a representative of the Agalarovs, wrote to a family member: “[The] meeting was boring. The Russians did not have any bad info [on] Hillary." After news broke on June 14 that the Russian government had hacked the DNC, Goldstone emailed Emin Agalarov and the Agalarov family representative, writing, “seems eerily weird based on our Trump meeting last week with the Russian lawyers etc.” The representative responded, “Very interesting.” 

The day before, Goldstone had spoken with Paula Shugart, the president of the Miss America Organization, who recalled him mentioning “a ridiculous meeting, where he went and they supposedly had emails from the Democrats and dirt on Hillary and then it turned out to be something about adoptions”—and when the news of the hack was reported on June 14, Shugart called Goldstone and said, “This sounds like what you were talking about,” though Goldstone denied it. The committee writes in a footnote:

The Committee notes this exchange because it is the only time that the Committee was told that emails were discussed as derogatory information at the June 9, 2016 meeting. It is noteworthy that Shugart recalls the emails being mentioned by Goldstone prior to the news of the DNC hack becoming public, and that she made the connection between the news of the DNC hack and Goldstone's account of the meeting at the time. 

Nevertheless, Shugart herself was not present at the meeting and noted that Goldstone is an "over-the-top personality, sometimes hard to follow." The Committee found no other evidence indicating that emails were discussed at the June 9, 2016 meeting. The Committee was ultimately not able to reconcile this discrepancy.

Oddly, following the failed meeting, the Agalarovs sent Trump a large painting as a birthday gift, and promised to send him two additional paintings (which were never delivered). They also sent the candidate more presents and messages as the campaign progressed, through Election Day. 

On Nov. 9, the father and son shared a congratulatory letter with the president-elect, stating, “We in Russia have been rooting for you and are very happy about your truly historic victory. People in Russia held high hopes that with your arrival into the White House, we will finally have a chance to normalize Russian-American relations, create [sic] ground for rebuilding the network of human and business contacts.”

Aras Agalarov aggressively pushed for a further meeting between Veselnitskaya and the Trump team following the election, though these efforts were unsuccessful.

In short, the committee paints the Trump Tower meeting in a somewhat more ominous light than do previous accounts: In the committee’s version, it took place against a backdrop of several years of cultivation of the Trumps by the Agalarovs, whom it describes as closely tied to mobsters and the Putin regime and specifically tied to folks involved in election-related influence operations. Against that backdrop, it describes a failed meeting that coincided in timing with the Russian hacking operation—to which it may or may not have had any relation.

D. Trump Tower Moscow, pp. 407-463

Trump Tower in New York, where the infamous June 9 meeting took place, was not the only Trump Tower at issue in the interactions between Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016 campaign. During the 2016 election cycle, senior members of the Trump Organization received at least three proposals for a Trump Tower in Moscow. 

Two were made to Michael Cohen, then executive vice president of the Trump Organization and personal attorney to Trump, by Felix Sater and Giorgi Rtskhiladze. One was made to Eric Trump by Boris Epshteyn, a then-Trump Campaign surrogate. Dmitri Klokov also contacted Cohen, through Ivanka Trump, during the 2016 election to set up a potential Trump-Putin meeting, possibly related to the same project.

These outreaches ended up being funneled to Michael Cohen, and he pursued them eagerly. In particular, the report describes in detail the energetic efforts by Cohen—with Trump’s blessing and encouragement—to pursue a real estate deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow through Felix Sater and his Russian-government-and-organized-crime-connected interlocutors. 

These efforts continued throughout the campaign. Yet Trump reassured Americans throughout the campaign and into his presidency that he had no Russian business interests or other entanglements. As just one example, on July 27, 2016, he said, “I have nothing to with Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia—for anything.”

This was a lie, and for those quick to dismiss the notion that Donald Trump was to any degree compromised by the Russians, consider the lie for a moment. Trump made these comments publicly in a high-stakes situation. He knew when he did so that they were untrue. The Russians also knew they were untrue. And Trump also knew that the Russians knew that they were untrue. 

The only people who didn’t know they were untrue were the American public. This creates leverage, because Trump also knew at some level that the Russians could expose his lie in a high-stakes situation at any point. Such knowledge creates counterintelligence risk for the simple reason that it creates a powerful incentive on the part of the candidate not to cross the party with leverage.

How powerful was that incentive? This section of the report spends more than 50 pages documenting communications and other machinations about the potential for a Trump Tower Moscow project. Architectural renderings were created. Trump himself signed a letter of intent. And Trump admitted to pursuing the deal only after it became utterly clear, in November 2018, that information about his, Cohen’s and others’ involvement in negotiations for the project would become public—and that denying any involvement with Russia would be impossible.

Even then, he [Trump] was unrepentant: “There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business. And why should I lose lots of opportunities?”

The seemingly most promising such opportunity came through Sater, who had worked for Trump and had explored the possibility of building a Trump Tower Moscow years earlier. In 1998, Sater had pleaded guilty to participation in a racketeering enterprise and agreed to serve as a government cooperator as part of his plea deal. 

Over the next decade, he proved extremely cooperative on a wide range of issues because of his continued connections with Russian individuals—including high-ranking military, former military and KGB officers—and with Russian criminal groups. The report states that Sater was a “prolific cooperator for the U.S. Government,” providing information on “‘the most elusive and dangerous’” individuals of interest to U.S. law enforcement.

Sater began working with the Trump Organization on real estate deals in 2000 as an executive at Bayrock. Bayrock leased office space in Trump Tower in New York around 2000, two floors below Trump’s offices. Later, while working with Daniel Ridloff, Sater got office space on the same floor of Trump Tower as Trump’s offices in exchange for work to source international deals. For less than a year, he served as senior adviser to Donald Trump. Between 2003 and 2004, he began working on a Trump project in Moscow, potentially to build a Trump Tower, and took an “exploratory trip” to Russia. These efforts continued on and off for some time but never resulted in a deal.

Fast forward to 2015. Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in June.

On Sept. 15, Cohen appeared on a radio program with Sean Hannity in which he said there is a “better than likely chance” that Trump would meet with Putin during Putin’s upcoming trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. Cohen initially told the committee that he was “just throwing it out there in order to have fun.” However, Cohen later admitted that prior to the Hannity show, he had engaged in concerted efforts to arrange such a meeting. 

He [Cohen] had called the Kremlin earlier in September and asked the woman who answered if there was “[a]ny chance when President Putin is in New York at the General Assembly he’d like to come by and have a burger with Mr. Trump at the [G]rille?” Cohen claimed the Kremlin representative responded by stating that she didn't think “protocol” would allow it, but that she would “let you know if we can.”

Cohen initially claimed to the committee that he never told Trump or anyone else in the Trump Organization or Trump campaign about the outreach or the idea for the meeting, but in subsequent testimony with the committee he admitted that much of this original account was false. He had, in fact, discussed the potential Putin meeting with Trump “two or three” times and Trump had supported Cohen’s outreach.

Specifically, Cohen recalled Trump seeing press articles that suggested that then-President Obama would not meet with Putin during the U.N. General Assembly. Cohen recalled Trump asking him rhetorically, “How stupid is our President not to meet with Putin when he's here?” Cohen recalled telling Trump that it would be “really cool” if “we can get [Putin] to come here and have a burger with you over at the Trump Grille.” 

Trump directed Cohen to “see if you can make it happen.” Cohen subsequently conducted the initial outreach to the Kremlin. Sometime after the Sept. 15, 2015, Hannity radio interview, Cohen followed up with the representative of the Russian government. Cohen was under the impression that Putin was informed of the outreach. Cohen ultimately informed Trump that the meeting would not happen.

Yet it seems Cohen’s statements and outreach sparked interest in Russia and with Trump’s Russia-connected associates. The report states that in late September, “Cohen received two seemingly independent offers to build a Trump Tower Moscow” that “arrived within days of each other.” Although Cohen did not think the offers were related to his outreach to the Kremlin earlier in the month, he “admitted that he had never before received two separate offers for the same building location at approximately the same time.”

One offer was from Sater, who claimed that his outreach was undertaken at his own initiative. In late September 2015, Sater called Andrei Rozov, the head of a Russian real estate development firm with the concept for a Trump Tower Moscow. 

Notably, the report states that “a body of information suggests Rozov’s personal and professional network likely has at least some ties to individuals associated with Russian influence operations.” Sater then called Cohen and presented the idea for a Trump Tower Moscow—a skyscraper that would be the tallest tower in Europe. Sater believed that a deal this large would require approval from Putin himself.

Cohen sought and obtained approval from Trump to initiate the negotiations.

Shortly thereafter, Cohen, Sater and Rozov quickly agreed to basic deal parameters and, around late September, Cohen forwarded architectural renderings for the project directly to Rozov. By Oct. 5, Cohen had drafted a letter of intent for the project that included specifics: a 120-story residential tower to be built in Moscow, a license fee structure that included a $4 million up-front fee to be paid in various installments, and a number of other detailed financial arrangements. 

Various revisions were made, including the inclusion of a hotel management provision that would allow Trump International Hotels Management to operate the hotel for 25 years, collecting a percentage of gross operating revenue, with the option to manage food and other services.

Sater moved energetically from there. He met with Russian billionaire Andrey Molchanov. Putin had worked in the past with Molchanov’s stepfather, who was in St. Petersburg’s city government. He told Cohen that Andrey Kostin, whom Sater described as “Putin’s top finance guy and CEO of 2nd largest bank in Russia,” was “on board and has indicated he would finance Trump Moscow.” The bank was VTB, and Kostin was “extremely powerful and respected.” Sater also tried to get Putin “on board” and claimed he had set up a tentative meeting with “Putin and [his] top deputy.”

The meeting did not happen, but by mid-October, Sater sent Cohen a letter of intent with Rozov’s signature. In the email, Sater linked the project to relations between the United States and Russia:

Lets [sic] make this happen and build a Trump Moscow. And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. That should be Putins [sic] message as well, and we will help him agree on that message. Help world peace and make a lot of money. I would say that’s a great lifetime goal for us to go after.

Approximately two weeks later, Trump countersigned the letter of intent. At approximately the same time, Trump conducted a campaign rally in Norfolk, Virginia, to announce his policy plans for veterans. During the rally, and seemingly unprompted, Trump made positive comments about Putin:

You know, I've made a lot of money. Deals are people, deals are people. And you have got to analyze people, and I can look at people. I can tell you, I’ll get along with Putin. I was on 60 Minutes with Putin. He was my stablemate three weeks ago. We got the highest ratings in a long time on 60 Minutes. You saw that, right? He was my stablemate. I believe I’ll get along with him. It was Trump and Putin, Putin and Trump. I’d even let him go first if it makes us friendly. I’ll give up the name. I’ll give up that place. But I was on 60 Minutes three weeks ago. I’ll get along with him.

He made similar comments at a press conference a few days later. Sater told Cohen that Putin was aware of the Trump Tower Moscow project and was supportive—a claim that Cohen relayed to Trump. The report states:

(U) Cohen further believed that the Trump Moscow project, and particularly the signing of the [letter of intent], affected Trump’s thinking and rhetoric toward Russia and Putin on the campaign trail. Cohen believed that Trump’s public comments about Russia could have been influenced by Cohen informing Trump that Putin was aware of, and had approved of, the project. When asked if Cohen had coordinated Trump’s public comments about Putin, Cohen stated that he hadn’t, but pointed to the fact that he had conveyed Putin’s awareness to Trump and believed it was a factor in Trump’s statements.

The report finds that Sater, for his part, “said that the connection between the project and the campaign was so obvious that he didn’t think the connection needed to be verbalized. … Sater told the Committee that what Trump was saying on the campaign trail could ‘help’ the project move forward.”

It’s worth pausing for a moment here to consider how the Americans involved in these efforts seemed to have zero pause about using a presidential campaign to actively advance potentially lucrative private business deals. Trump clearly shared that ethos: As has been previously reported, Cohen said Trump called his campaign “the greatest infomercial in the history of politics.”

The report details Sater’s efforts to engage with personal friends of Putin, like Andrey Rozov, the Rotenbergs (a family “extremely close to Putin” who handle “special projects” for him), Mikhail Zayats, and Evgeny Shmykov.

Who is Shmykov? The report redacts most of the text addressing Shmykov. But based on reporting by multiple news outlets, Shmykov is a former general in Russian military intelligence—the GRU.

Another Evgeny also makes an appearance in Sater’s efforts: Evgeny Dvoskin, who the report states is “strongly connected to Russian organized crime and the Russian intelligence services, particularly the FSB.”

It’s quite a crowd, and, remember, none of this is public at the time. Trump is literally running for president while attempting to negotiate a business deal with a Russian dictator and while actively courting the mobsters and spies around him.

The report goes on, in detail, to show the continued efforts by Cohen to advance the deal, that Cohen sought to visit Moscow himself as well as to lay the groundwork for a visit to Moscow by Trump in 2016. At one point, Cohen sent his own passport information to Sater, and he kept Trump apprised of his and Sater’s efforts. Cohen also recalled speaking with Donald Trump Jr. and lvanka Trump about the project.

In late December 2015, Cohen grew impatient with Sater for not delivering the high-level Russian contacts and invitations Sater had promised. Cohen told Sater he had “lost the deal” and that Cohen was contacting his “alternate”—presumably Giorgi Rtskhiladze. Cohen also reached out directly to the Kremlin to get Putin’s help to advance the project—this time with considerably better results. He tried to email Dmitry Peskov, the Russian government press secretary as well as a “high-level Kremlin insider and a key advisor to Putin.” His efforts worked. 

Peskov’s chief of staff, Elena Poliakova (described in the report as someone with “exceptional access within the Kremlin”) responded from her personal email account a few days later and provided a phone number for Cohen to call. They spoke for approximately 20 minutes and discussed the Trump Moscow project in great detail. Poliakova already knew all about the proposed project—Cohen stated that she had “really done her homework” and that he wished some of the Trump Organization’s assistants “would be this prepared.” Poliakova told Cohen that they would be in touch.

That conversation reignited Cohen’s and Sater’s efforts and engagement. For a while, it looked like Trump might actually go to Russia:

At some point shortly after Cohen’s call with Peskov’s assistant, Cohen told Trump about the call. Cohen recalled telling Trump that he had spoken with “someone from the Kremlin” about the Trump Tower Moscow project. … Cohen recalled that at some point in this approximate time period he also discussed the possibility of traveling to Russia with Trump. Cohen recalled that Trump did not express concerns about traveling to Russia while a presidential candidate if it would aid the deal. According to Cohen, Trump instructed Cohen to speak with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski about dates for potential travel to Russia.

Travel dates were identified, and Rhona Graff, Trump’s assistant, brought Cohen Trump’s passport in preparation for a trip in February or March 2016.

It didn’t happen, and there was a short lull in planning, but later that spring, Cohen and Sater resumed their activity around the project and the possibility of traveling to Russia. This time, the question was whether it would happen before or after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in late July 2016. Cohen instructed Sater: “My trip before Cleveland. Trump once he becomes the nominee after the convention.” Sater told the Committee that he “absolutely” understood that the Moscow project was still active at this time.

In early May, Sater told Cohen that Peskov himself wanted to invite Cohen to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in mid-June. SPIEF is the most important Russian business summit conducted “under the auspices of the President of the Russian Federation, who has also attended each event.” It is unclear if an invitation actually was forthcoming from Peskov, but in any event, Sater worked with “Evgeny” to arrange an invitation for Cohen.

But alas, after many machinations to arrange a trip to Moscow for Cohen and Trump to advance the Trump Tower Moscow project, it was not to be. Sater and Cohen met in the Trump Tower atrium, and Sater recalled: “[Cohen] turned around and said: I can’t go. At the last minute he said: I can't go; let’s wait until after Cleveland.” The report states that Cohen decided not to go because “he felt the invitation did not come from the highest level in Moscow.” In any event:

Through at least June 2016, Cohen said that Trump viewed the Moscow project the same way Cohen did, as an “opportunity that was active.” Cohen came to this understanding because Trump would, on a “regular basis,” ask Cohen about the status of the Russia project. Cohen recalled: “In other words, Mr. Trump is out there on the rally, in the public, stating there’s no Russian collusion, there’s no involvement, there’s no deals, there’s no connection. 

And yet, the following day, as we’re walking to his car, he’s asking me, ‘How’s things going with Russia?’” … Cohen understood that Trump was “interested in the project” and recalled that he had spoken to Trump “ten to twelve” times during the course of the negotiations, which lasted from September 2015 to at least until June 2016.

Imagine if the Russians had decided to disclose the fact of these discussions that Trump was then denying. Imagine as well the pressure this possibility would have created for Trump even as he was setting himself up for it.

After the Republican National Convention in July 2016, the report indicates, Sater stated that it became obvious that there was “just no way that a presidential candidate could build a tower in a foreign country.” As a result, efforts on the project ceased.

What about the other offer to build a Trump Tower Moscow that materialized in late September 2015? In addition to Cohen’s attempts with Sater, Cohen received a call from Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a businessman with whom he had previously worked, about a similar project proposal in Moscow. Rtskhiladze had worked with Cohen on at least two other business projects. Rtskhiladze said he “had a group that he wanted to talk to about doing a Trump Tower Moscow.” Simon Nizharadze, a business associate of Rtskhiladze’s, had requested he contact Cohen to facilitate a potential licensing deal between Vladimir Mazur and the Trump Organization. 

The architect Rtskhiladze had in mind had designed the tallest building in Russia and worked on projects for the Moscow city-level government in Russia. Later, Rtskhiladze told Cohen that a “project presentation” for the Trump residential building will be ready in several days and that the Trump World Tower project concept “is being shared with the presidents [sic] cabinet and Moscow mayor.”

It was not to be, though. Cohen decided not to pursue a Moscow project with Rtskhiladze and instead pursued the project with Sater.

And what about the other instances of outreach to the Trump family related to the Trump Tower Moscow project? According to the report, in addition to communicating with both Sater and Rtskhiladze in the fall of 2015, Cohen had contact with another Russian national, Dmitry Klokov, in the same time frame. Klokov was the director of external communications for a large Russian energy company and had served as the press secretary to Russia’s minister of energy.

This time, the outreach came not to Cohen but through a different channel: Ivanka Trump. On Nov. 16, 2015, Ivanka Trump received an email from Klokov’s wife about the Trump Tower Moscow project. According to Cohen, the report states, Ivanka Trump called Cohen, forwarded the email, and asked him to follow up and “report back to her on the outcome of the outreach.” 

According to Cohen, Ivanka Trump also forwarded the initial outreach from Klokov’s wife. When asked if lvanka Trump’s instruction to Cohen was about the Trump Tower Moscow project or a potential meeting between Putin and Trump, Cohen said that it was a “combination of the two.”

When Cohen spoke to Klokov on the phone the next day, Klokov already knew about the project in Moscow. Cohen told the committee that Klokov claimed he had “relationships with the government,” that he could “help with this Trump Moscow proposal, and it would be great if all parties were able to meet and to develop this property in Moscow.” Cohen said Klokov was “adamant about me coming to Moscow and to bring Mr. Trump to Moscow for the two to meet.” 

Klokov emailed Cohen the next day, Nov. 18, 2015, to emphasize that he was not affiliated with any business but was, instead, a “trusted person” focused on “political synergy.” He indicated that “our person of interest,” meaning Putin, was “ready to meet your candidate,” meaning Trump. Klokov said the Russian side would facilitate all aspects of the Putin-Trump meeting, including the security, transportation and accommodation. The meeting “ha[d] to be informal”:

Further, Klokov told Cohen that Cohen’s business development efforts should be separated from the proposed “informal” meeting between Putin and Trump. Klokov emphasized that although these would be bifurcated, ultimately the meeting would yield even larger business opportunities which would have “the most important support.”

Cohen quickly responded to Klokov’s email—and copied Ivanka Trump. Cohen expressed enthusiasm but told Klokov that he would advise Trump not to travel to Russia except in the context of an “official visit.”

According to the report, Klokov responded to Cohen the following day, Nov. 16, 2015, and “reemphasized that his focus was not on the immediate business project, but rather arranging an informal meeting between Putin and Trump.” Klokov stated that the meeting “has already been discussed” with Putin, who was “knowledgeable about it and would gladly meet your client”:

Klokov focused again on his goal of creating “synergy on a government level,” but made clear that the Putin meeting would have lucrative business outcomes: “Now, your client is a candidate and hardly any other political move could be compared to a tête-à-tête meeting between them. If publicized correctly the impact of it could be phenomenal, of course not only in political but in a business dimension as well. I don't have to tell you that there is no bigger warranty in any project than consent of the person of interest.”

Cohen tried to refocus the discussion on the business project and said that he would be “honored” to meet with Klokov while in Moscow “to discuss any thoughts you might have that could enhance the project.”

The report states that the committee did not obtain any further communications between Cohen and Klokov. Cohen said he relayed the sum and substance of his conversation with Klokov to Ivanka Trump. He “may have” told Trump about the outreach but said he did not recall whether he informed anyone else in the Trump Organization of the outreach during this time period.

There is one more Trump Tower Moscow outreach to describe—this one to Eric Trump. In the spring of 2016, Boris Epshteyn—a Trump campaign surrogate and later employee—received a proposal from contacts he had in the Moscow city government. He shared it with Eric Trump, with whom Epshteyn had long been friends. The report states that the committee has no indication that the Trump Organization took any action related to the proposal.

The balance of this section describes all of the efforts Michael Cohen, Trump, and others made to mislead the public—and Congress—about Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign:

As described by Cohen in his testimony to the Committee and elsewhere, Cohen believed that there was a discrepancy between then-candidate Trump’s public statements on the campaign trail stating that he had no business deals related to Russia, and the approximately nine-month effort to build Trump Tower Moscow in 2015 and 2016. During the campaign, Cohen also undertook efforts to maintain the secrecy of the negotiations.

The report also includes a puzzling little discussion about the potential for other Trump figures’ involvement with some of the same Russians that popped up in the Trump Tower Moscow narrative. After the election, Cohen was part of an alleged joint defense agreement (JDA) with an unknown number of other Trump-affiliated individuals, including Trump himself, the Trump Organization, Jared Kushner, lvanka Trump, Felix Sater, and others.

According to the report, a number of issues arose as the committee sought testimony and documents from Cohen that likely related to the functioning of this alleged JDA. One such issue involved outreach related to Dmitry Klokov. Cohen initially told the committee that a communication came into the Trump Organization requesting that Cohen speak with Klokov. Cohen’s then-attorney, Stephen Ryan, told the committee that the communications were privileged and they were therefore not produced. 

Cohen later told the committee that, in fact, Ryan had said the communication was privileged at the request of Abbe Lowell, who at the time served as attorney to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Cohen then told the committee the communication was not, in fact, privileged and testified about its contents in his second interview with the committee. The report states that “[i]t is unclear why Ryan ever considered the communication privileged.”

The report also makes clear that multiple emails between Cohen and Russian government officials were never produced to the committee, including Cohen’s outreach to the Kremlin's press office seeking to speak with Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, as well as a response from Dmitri Peskov’s assistant seeking to discuss the Trump Moscow project. 

Cohen initially made false statements to the committee about these communications and transmitted his false statements about his outreach to the Kremlin on the project to the press and to the public generally. The goal was to give the false impression that Cohen had not communicated in a substantive way with the Russian government regarding the project.

Of course, Cohen eventually pleaded guilty to making intentionally false statements to this committee and to the House Intelligence Committee related to the Trump Tower project. Cohen told the committee that a certain email with a Russian government employee—presumably Elena Poliakova—was never provided to him by the Trump Organization, another member of the alleged JDA. 

As a result, he could not produce it to the committee: “The Committee was unable to determine the accuracy of this claim. However, if true, this lends support to the conclusion that Cohen’s initial false statements to the Committee were aided by other members of the alleged JDA, namely the Trump Organization.”

It doesn’t stop there. The section ends with this paragraph:

Furthermore, drafts of Cohen’s prepared statement that included this and other false or misleading statements was “circulated through all of the various individuals” who read it and, according to Cohen, these individuals “knew the information was false.” Cohen “suspect[ed]” that Trump had seen the statement. He further said that he believed Trump knew that the statement was false because “my conversations with him took place for several months after the January date that’s referenced in this statement.” 

Cohen also said that after he was indicted in the Southern District of New York, he discussed a potential pardon for himself with Jay Sekulow “more than a half dozen times.” Cohen further stated that he understood that the pardon discussions had come from Trump through Sekulow.

In short, the gist of this section seems to be this: Multiple efforts were made by the Russian government to create a situation in which Putin and candidate Trump could meet. It seems the enticement of the Trump Tower Moscow project was as good a predicate as any to make that happen. When it became clear that Trump’s candidacy had legs, multiple offers from Russian-government-connected interlocutors presented themselves to Trump confidantes through multiple channels. Trump encouraged Michael Cohen and asked about progress on the project. 

Yet a deal never quite seemed to come to fruition, despite multiple probes through multiple channels. Once it dawned on the Trump inner circle that a meeting with Vladimir Putin might not serve their political interests, they lied about it and tried to cover it up.

But it seems Putin may have gotten what he wanted anyway—a sordid story of an American president and his cronies cynically pursuing business interests while proclaiming “America First” and lying about it. So in the end, Putin can tell his countrymen what he’s always wanted them to understand—that America is really not any different from Russia.

And along the way, Trump put himself in a position in which the Russians could reveal him as a liar about one of his more famous 2016 campaign pledges.