BREAKING: A former Russian intelligence officer helped negotiate Trump Tower Moscow buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/d…
This is a stunning twist. Trump/Cohen/Sater continued to work towards a Trump Tower Moscow deal AFTER the RNC. It appears that Michael Cohen has mislead Congress.
I've been researching Trump Tower Moscow for the better part of 6 months now. This story cannot be understated. I will summarize the key points in a thread here.
Michael Cohen: "In late January 2016, I abandoned the Moscow proposal..." With this story, BuzzFeed has proven this to be an egregious lie.
In reality: Sater and Cohen were set to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with Cohen in June 2016 until Sater cancelled at the last minute. Cohen did not abandon the Moscow proposal in January.
In December, I reported that IC Expert (the developer of Trump Tower Moscow) received a 10.6 billion ruble loan 3 weeks after Trump signed the Letter of Intent. medium.com/@ScottMStedman…
I believed, and continue to believe, that the effort to work with VTB was a red herring. IC Expert had a bank that was loaning them a ton of money. It was Sberbank.
The deal, as BuzzFeed reports, was being negotiated throughout Paul Manafort's tenure at Campaign Chairman. In February, I published evidence that suggests Oleg Deripaska holds (at least) a 15% stake in IC Expert. medium.com/@ScottMStedman…
It is imperative that we learn more about HOW Manafort joined the campaign and IF he knew about Trump Tower Moscow. Were any Russians involved in this deal responsible for bringing Manafort to Trump?
Furthermore, what was the Russian government's goal in dangling this deal over Trump's head during the heat of the election race? As one source who was in RU finance told me: "Anyone who does big projects in Russia has to deal with Putin or people close to him."
Those are my initial thoughts. I'm sure I'll have more later. Save the Cohen raid, this story is the most damning in many weeks. @a_cormier_ and @JasonLeopold continue to regularly churn out the most important scoops in the Trump/Russia story.
