Trump–Russia relations |
---|
| ||
---|---|---|
Business and personal 45th President of the United States Tenure Impeachments Prosecutions Interactions involving Russia | ||
Donald Trump has pursued business deals in Russia since 1987, and has repeatedly traveled there to explore potential business opportunities. In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals. Trump, his children, and his partners have repeatedly visited Russia, connecting with real estate developers and Russian government officials to explore joint venture opportunities. Trump was never able to successfully conclude any real estate deals in Russia. However, individual Russians have invested heavily in Trump properties, and, following Trump's bankruptcies in the 1990s, he borrowed money from Russian sources. Both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have said that Russia was an important source of money for the Trump businesses.
Efforts to build a Trump building in Moscow continued into June 2016 while Trump was securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election.
In January 2017, BuzzFeed News reported the existence of the then-unverified Steele dossier (also called the Trump–Russia dossier), which alleges connections between Trump associates and Russia. Trump responded the next day, and again at a February news conference, that he has no financial connections to Russia. In response to ongoing questions, White House press secretary Sean Spicer reiterated in May that Trump has no business connections to Russia. Also in May, Trump's tax lawyers sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying Trump had not received any income from Russian sources over the past 10 years "with a few exceptions".
Trump's pre-Presidential business dealings with Russia were scrutinized by the special counsel. [1]
In July 2018, The Daily Beast reported on a search engine optimization project intended to minimize public awareness of Trump's connections to an associate who worked on these projects with him. [2]
In 1987, Trump visited Russia to investigate developing a hotel, invited by Ambassador Yuri Dubinin whom he had met in New York the year before. [3] British journalist Luke Harding alleged in 2017 that this trip likely began a long-term cultivation operation typical of the KGB's Political Intelligence Department, under written directives initiated by First Chief Directorate head Vladimir Kryuchkov, to recruit politically ambitious Westerners susceptible to flattery, egotism and greed. [3]
In 1996, Trump partnered with Liggett-Ducat, a small company, and planned to build an upscale residential development on a Liggett-Ducat property in Moscow. Trump commissioned New York architect Ted Liebman, who did the sketches. Trump visited Moscow again with Howard Lorber to scout potential properties for "skyscrapers and hotels". [4] During that trip, Trump promoted the proposal and acclaimed the Russian economic market. At a news conference reported by The Moscow Times , Trump said he hadn't been "as impressed with the potential of a city as I have been with Moscow" in contrast to other cities had visited "all over the world." [5]
By this time, Trump had made known his desire to build in Moscow to government officials for almost ten years "ranging from the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev (they first met in Washington in 1987) to the military figure Alexander Lebed." [5] Moscow's mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, showed Trump plans for a very large shopping mall to be located underground in the vicinity of the Kremlin. The mayor complimented Trump's suggestion that this mall should have access to the Moscow Metro, and it was eventually connected to the Okhotny Ryad station. Although the 1996 residential development did not happen, Trump was by this time well known in Russia. [6]
Trump's business strategy included Russia in ventures intended to internationally expand his brand. He transitioned in the mid-2000s from building and investing in real estate to simply licensing his name to hotels, condominiums, and commercial towers. Although a strategy of taking a percentage from the sales was successful in other countries, Trump's terms were not agreeable to Russians and conflicted with their way of doing business with American hotel chains. [5] [6]
From 2000 to 2010, Trump partnered with a development company headquartered in New York represented by a Russian immigrant, Felix Sater. During this period, they partnered for an assortment of deals that included building Trump towers internationally. For example, in 2005 Sater acted as an agent for building a Trump tower alongside Moscow River with letters of intent in hand and "square footage was being analyzed." [5] [6]
In 2006, Trump's children Donald Jr. and Ivanka, traveling with Sater, [5] [6] stayed in the Hotel National, Moscow for several days, across from the Kremlin, to see promising partners, with the intent of doing real estate development deals. [5] [7] [8]
Trump was associated with Tevfik Arif, formerly a Soviet commerce official and founder of a development company called the Bayrock Group, of which Sater was also a partner. Bayrock searched for deals in Russia while Trump branded towers were attempting to further expand in the United States. Sater said, "We looked at some very, very large properties in Russia," on the scale of "...a large Vegas high-rise." [5] In 2007, Bayrock organized a potential deal in Moscow between Trump International Hotel and Russian investors. [6]
During 2006–2008, Trump's company applied for a number of trademarks in Russia with the goal of real estate developments. These trademark applications include: Trump, Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Trump Home. [9] [10] In 2008, he said as a speaker at a Manhattan real estate conference that he feared the outcome of doing business deals in Russia, but he preferred "Moscow over all cities in the world" and that within 18 months he had been in Russia a half-dozen times. [5] [6]
In 2007, Trump announces that Trump Vodka will expand its distribution into Russia, his first foray into the Russian market. [11] Trump "Super Premium" Vodka, bottles glazed with 24-karat gold, debuted in 2007 at the Millionaire's Fair in Moscow. It was successful only until sometime in 2009. Trump attempted to create a reality show in St. Petersburg, starring a Russian athlete. However, this was not successful. [5] [6]
In a 2015 interview, Trump said that his repeated attempts to launch business deals with Russians resulted in contacts with "…the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I can't go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary." [5] [6]
Efforts to build Trump Tower Moscow continued through June 2016, while Trump was securing his place as the Republican presidential nominee. However, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017 told Congress that these efforts ended in January 2016, and as a result, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2018. [12] After June 2016, Trump denied several times having business dealings in or with Russia: in July 2016 he denied having employees or investments in Russia, and in October 2016 he said he was not doing any deals there and had nothing to do with Russia. [13] The president's attorney Rudy Giuliani made some contrary statements about that chronology, but then backtracked. [14]
On July 9, 2019, Sater acknowledged before the House Intelligence Committee that one real estate project between Russia and Trump was falsely presented as a joint defense agreement, but withheld documents concerning direct details and phone records. [15] Following his testimony, Committee chair Patrick Boland announced "Our investigation thus far has revealed that Sater was not a part of any joint defense agreement, and has no basis to assert this privilege over these documents." [15]
On January 10, 2017, BuzzFeed News published the Steele dossier (also called the Trump–Russia dossier), a series of reports prepared by a private intelligence source in Great Britain. The unverified dossier alleged various connections and collusion between Trump associates and Russia before and during the 2016 presidential election. [16] The next day, January 11, Trump tweeted, "Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!" [17] USA Today evaluated that assertion as "not exactly true". [18] At a February 16, 2017 press conference, Trump said, "And I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia." [19]
On May 9, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "He [Trump] has no business in Russia. He has no connections to Russia." [20]
On May 9, 2017, Trump's tax law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which said a review of Trump's tax returns for the past 10 years did not find income from Russian sources during that period, save for "a few exceptions". [21] The exceptions were the 2008 sale of a Trump-owned 6.26-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for $95 million to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, [22] [23] who tore down the 62,000-square-foot mansion shortly after and sold 2.72 acres of the site for $34 million, [24] as well as $12.2 million in payments in connection with holding the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, plus a number[ quantify ] of "immaterial" deals. No independently verifiable evidence was provided, such as tax returns, and it has been noted that even disclosure of tax returns would not necessarily disclose Russian-source income. The letter also said Trump had received undisclosed payments over 10 years from Russians for hotel rooms, rounds of golf, or Trump-licensed products such as wine, ties, or mattresses, which would not have been identified as coming from Russian sources in the tax returns. [25] The letter was a response to earlier requests from Senator Lindsey Graham asking whether there were any such ties. [26]
On November 30, 2018, a day after Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump's business projects in Russia, Trump tweeted that it was "very legal & very cool" that he did "run for President & continue to run my business". Trump continued: "Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn't do the project." [12]
info@prpress.gov.ru
seeking help to jump-start the Trump Tower Moscow project because "the communication between our two sides has stalled", but does not receive a response. [62] [61] [76] [77] [57] : 74 In August 2017 Peskov tells CNN that Cohen's email "went unanswered [because it] was solely regarding a real estate deal and nothing more." [76] Pr_peskov@prpress.gov.ru
, the correct address he mistyped on January 11, and repeats his request to speak with Ivanov. [61] [57] : 74 Later Cohen tells Congress and Mueller's team that he received no response to this email and abandoned the Trump Moscow Project. He later admits to federal prosecutors that he did receive a response and continued working on the project and keeping Trump updated on progress into June 2016. [78] [57] : 74–75 Emin Aras oghlu Agalarov, also known as Emin Arazovich Agalarov, is an Azerbaijani singer and businessperson. He is the son of Aras Agalarov, a billionaire. From 2006 to 2015, he was married to Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.
Aras Iskanderovich Agalarov is an Azerbaijani Russian billionaire real estate developer. Listed in Forbes as the 51st richest Russian in 2015, several sources have described him as a Russian oligarch.
Michael Dean Cohen is an American lawyer who served as an attorney for former United States president Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018. Cohen served as vice president of the Trump Organization and personal counsel to Trump, often being described as his fixer. Cohen served as co-president of Trump Entertainment and was a board member of the Eric Trump Foundation, a children's health charity. From 2017 to 2018, Cohen was deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Felix Henry Sater is a Russian-American mobster, convicted felon, real estate developer and former managing director of Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate conglomerate based out of New York City. He has been an advisor to corporations such as The Trump Organization, and the Mirax Group.
The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
Tevfik Arif, also known as Tofik Arifov, is a Russian/Turkish real estate developer and investor. He is the founder of the Bayrock Group, an international real estate development and investment company based in New York. He resides in the United States.
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report compiled by Christopher Steele that was published without permission in 2017 as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" raw intelligence reports—"not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation".
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Since Donald Trump was a 2016 candidate for the office of President of the United States, multiple suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered by the FBI, a special counsel investigation, and several United States congressional committees, as part of their investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials. Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer. Her clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York. On 8 January 2019, Veselnitskaya was indicted in the United States with obstruction of justice charges for allegedly having attempted to thwart the Justice Department investigation into the money laundering charges against Katsyv.
A meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City on June 9, 2016, between three senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign – Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort – four other U.S. citizens, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The meeting was arranged by publicist and long-time Trump acquaintance Rob Goldstone on behalf of his client, Russian singer-songwriter Emin Agalarov. The meeting was first disclosed to U.S. government officials in April 2017, when Kushner filed a revised version of his security clearance form.
This is a timeline of major events in the first half of 2017 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8 and the post-election transition, this article begins with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017, and is followed by the second half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of events in the first half of 2019 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, both before and after July 2016, until November 8, 2016, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and followed by the second half of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Trump Tower Moscow, also known as the Moscow Project, was a series of proposals by the Trump Organization to develop a Trump skyscraper in Russia. Michael Cohen testified in February 2019 that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were regularly briefed about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. Trump Jr. said to US Congress that he was only "peripherally aware of it".
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.
This is a chronology of significant events in 2016 and 2017 related to the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies during the Trump presidential transition and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016, this article begins on November 8 and ends with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2018 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, and the first half of 2018, but precedes that of the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
This is a timeline of major events in the second half of 2017 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the post-election transition, and the first half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
The Mueller special counsel investigation was started by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was serving as Acting Attorney General due to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He authorized Robert Mueller to investigate and prosecute "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump", as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR 600.4 – Jurisdiction.
Mr. Trump repeatedly sought business in Russia as far back as 1987, when he traveled there to explore building a hotel
It crosses continents and decades and has swept into its vortex more than four hundred people, millions of pages of financial records, and scores of unanswered questions about the state of our democracy.Index for Proof of Collusion Archived June 28, 2019, at the Wayback Machine .
And he told a New York conference in September 2008, "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
That's when he said Eric Trump told him, "We have pretty much all the money we need from investors in Russia," Dodson said. ... "This story is completely fabricated and just another example of why there is such a deep distrust of the media in our country #FakeNews," Eric Trump said.
He said, 'Well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We've got some guys that really, really love golf, and they're really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was [a little more than] three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
{{cite news}}
: |author=
has generic name (help)