Felix Sater, a longtime associate of President Trump, used close contacts with Russia to negotiate a real estate contract during the 2016 campaign. One such contact was a former intelligence chief in Russia.
When Donald J. Trump tried to build a tower in Moscow in the middle of his 2016 presidential campaign, it was the culmination of a decades-long effort to plant the "Trump" flag there.
The role played by his former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, came to light on Thursday after pleading guilty to cheating Congress. But this effort was largely directed by Felix Sater, a well-known criminal and long-time business partner with close ties to Russia.
Sater was inspired by his address book and his more than 100 Russian contacts, including entries for President Vladimir V. Putin and a former Russian military intelligence general, for the project to take off. Sater asked General Evgeny Shmykov to help organize the visas for Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump to visit Russia, according to emails and interviews with several people who know the events.
For months, the criminal, the former Russian intelligence officer and Mr. Trump's lawyer worked on the deal, talking to Putin's assistant, Russian bankers and real estate developers. But in July 2016, when Mr. Trump won the Republican presidential nomination and the interference charges of Russia in the elections heated up, the project was abandoned and neither Mr. Cohen nor Mr. Trump surrendered. in Moscow.
The unlikely story of the Moscow agreement with Trump Tower was relegated to the center stage on Thursday after Cohen admitted to lying to Congress about his role in the project. Mr. Cohen told Special Advocate Robert S. Mueller III that his participation lasted much longer, that his contacts with the Russians and his meetings with Mr. Trump were more frequent than he had claimed. before.
The memories of Mr. Cohen, leaked on Thursday in a court file, as well as documents related to Mr. Sater's work for the Trump Organization obtained by The New York Times, give a more complete picture of the continuation of the affairs of the Mr. M. Trump in Moscow.
The lawyer of former President Michael D. Cohen, who pleaded guilty on Thursday to cheat Congress on his role in trying to secure the Trump Tower project in Moscow.
Mr. Trump's efforts in 2016 were only the latest episode in a long and sporadic search dating back to the 1980s. But as the Trump brand became more and more common and had commercial hotels and towers around the world, a Russian equivalent had never been found, even after Trump had acquired brands in the country and sent emissaries, including his children. , in search of contracts
Mr. Sater, a US citizen who emigrated from Russia, also signed an agreement that was almost launched in 2005, a Moscow tower on the site of an old pencil factory. I was working at that time for Bayrock Group, a development company that teamed up with Trump on several hotel projects in the United States.
Sater appealed to Evgeny Shmykov, a former Russian military intelligence general, to participate in the Moscow project.
Mr. Sater, who sometimes had a business card that identified him as Mr. Trump's "principal advisor," continued to deal with Russia throughout the 2000s. During a visit he was accompanied by Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, arranged for Mrs. Trump to sit in Putin's chair during a visit to the Kremlin, he said in e-mails to Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Sater was inspired by the relationship he had established in Russia in the late 1990s, when he began working in secret for the US intelligence agencies. UU., Which helped reduce his sentence after a guilty plea in a $ 40 million securities fraud case. (He had previously been convicted of cutting off a man's face in a Manhattan bar fight in 1991). He told the House Intelligence Committee that he had maintained a network of contacts. Including "high level intelligence, military agents and military research facilities".
One of his contacts was Mr. Shmykov, who worked with fighters against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s while serving in Russian military intelligence, according to documents and reports. Online searches. Mr. Shmykov, 62, has a profile on a Russian social network that indicates that he attended the Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, which trains intelligence personnel.
Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. during a trip to Moscow.
Contacted by the Times, Mr. Shmykov refused to answer questions, but directed a reporter to images of his time in the military, including a photo in which he appears with Mr. Sater, saying: "These photos are answers to all your questions. "Sir. Sater refused to comment.
Mr. Sater recruited him at the end of 2015, when the race for the presidency of the United States was already underway, he was currently trying to conclude an agreement with Trump Tower in Moscow. Mr. Sater exchanged emails and phone calls with Mr. Cohen regarding the reactivation of the tower plans. The two men were friends, and Mr. Sater seemed almost dazed when he explained to Mr. Cohen how he would use their relationship to "get Putin's entire team to subscribe to this project."
"Friend," Sater wrote, "our boy can become president of the United States and we can design it."
Mr. Cohen sent an email to Mr. Sater in December 2015, referring to an article that Mr. Putin praised Mr. Trump. In the email, Mr. Cohen said: "The time has come.
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, on the right, with his press officer, Dmitry Peskov. Mr. Peskov asked a colleague to contact Mr. Cohen to discuss the tour project.
A few days later, according to the copies of the emails examined by the Times, Mr. Sater sent an urgent message to Mr. Cohen. He said that he had Mr. Shmykov on the phone and that he needed the passport information of Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in order to receive the visas. Mr. Sater explained that the Kremlin could not issue them for diplomatic reasons and that they would prefer to come from the VTB bank as part of a "non-political business meeting".
The president of VTB, one of Russia's largest state banks, denied that his bank had participated in the project.
Later, Mr. Sater told the House Intelligence Committee that the tone of his emails reflected an excess of aggression on his part and that he had no serious connection with the Kremlin. He said that his suggestion that the agreement with the tower could help Mr. Trump to be elected meant that he thought it would generate positive publicity for the campaign.
In their report on the interference of Russia in the election, the Republicans of the commission accepted MM's statements. Cohen and Sater claimed that the Trump Tower project was a commercial enterprise with no political connotations. The report, which does not mention either Mr. Shmykov or his function, concluded that "no element of the Russian government was actually directly involved in the project."
Mr. Cohen's guilty plea on Thursday sheds new light on this conclusion. Among other things, Mr. Cohen now admits that he repeatedly tried to contact Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, who had asked him to contact his interlocutor to discuss the tower project. . Mr. Cohen said he had a 20-minute conversation with the Kremlin in January 2016, who "asked detailed questions and took notes, saying he would continue with other people in Russia."
In a message to Mr. Cohen the next day, Mr. Sater mentioned Mr. Putin and said that he had heard about this project: "They called today." Later, in May 2016, he informed Mr. Cohen that a Russian official had invited the lawyer to an economic forum in St. Petersburg, where he was expected to meet with Mr. Putin.
Mr. Cohen initially accepted, but then met with Mr. Sater in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York and told him he would not leave.
How a Lawyer, a Felon and a Russian General Chased a Moscow Trump Tower Deal
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Reviewed by Musa Ali
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