According to the president’s personal lawyer, the Trump Organization continued conversations with Russian officials about building a 100-story tower in Moscow well into 2016 — months later than what was previously made public.
In an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Rudy Giuliani said conversations extended as far as October or November of 2016 — precisely around the time Trump was elected president.
If accurate, Giuliani’s comments dramatically extend the timeline of the business dealings behind the now-defunct plans to build Trump Tower Moscow, plans which have drawn questions about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Until recently, talks led by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen were believed to have ended in June 2016.
Now it appears they actually took several more months to conclude.
Asked to clarify the timeline of negotiations, Giuliani said he didn’t have exact dates, but thought it was around the time of the election:
GIULIANI: It’s our understanding that they went on throughout 2016, not a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can’t be sure of the exact dates but the president can remember having conversations with him about it…
TODD: “Throughout 2016?”
GIULIANI: Yeah, probably up to… could be, up to as far as October, November.
Our answers cover until the election, so any time during that period, they could have talked about it. But the president’s recollection of it is that the thing had petered out quite a bit.
The sent a letter of intent in, they didn’t even know where to send it, they knew so little about it.
They finally got it straightened out. And then they abandoned the project.
The exact timing of the negotiations remains a central question in the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, looking into whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians to influence the 2016 campaign.
Cohen originally told Congress that the attempted business dealings ended in January 2016.
However, court documents indicate that he lied — the actual date was believed to be months later in June, and Cohen has since pleaded guilty to making false statements before Congress.
Adding to the drama is a Buzzfeed News report that Trump pressured Cohen into lying to Congress.
Mueller’s office pushed back on those allegations, and Giuliani said on Sunday he is “100 percent certain” the president did not order his subordinate to commit perjury.
Buzzfeed is standing by its sources, and the story.
The new timeline doesn’t look good for Trump, who wanted to make a business footprint in Russia for decades — the question is whether that long-held desire compromised him during his presidential campaign.
As Vox’s Alex Ward notes, Trump openly talked about wanting to build “Trump Tower Moscow” as early as 2013.
Then early rumblings for the project began to materialize around 2015.
The deal ultimately turned sour, and plans to build a 100-story tower that included “The Spa by Ivanka Trump,” never came to fruition.
But the public only first heard about it in 2017, months into Trump’s presidency.
The critical question is whether Trump’s desire to develop this property compromised him during his presidential campaign — making him more susceptible to the Kremlin’s attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
That’s one of the key questions the special counsel investigation — and the parallel congressional investigations — has been trying to answer.
Trump said repeatedly while campaigning that he had no business dealings with Russia.
But if what his own lawyer said is true, that his family business was pursuing “an active proposal” in the days and weeks prior to his election, then it gives Democrats even more fodder to investigate Trump.
Asked whether he was aware about the timeline that Giuliani laid out Sunday, Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he had no idea.
“That is news to me — and it’s big news,” he said.