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Vladivostok with a lot of money would have put
up all the money.”
It is not clear whether Trump knew about the
plans to give Putin a penthouse or his cronies a
chunk of the deal. Which is remarkable in itself.
A presidential candidate delegated a radioactive
deal, in a hostile foreign country, to a former
convict (Sater) and a soon-to-be convict (Cohen).
Virtually every part of their plan involved
Putin or someone close to him. The equity?
Putin’s boys. The debt? Kremlin-connected
banks. The land? A Putin ally. The approvals?
Government entities. The marketing? Putin
himself. Look at Trump Moscow long enough
and it gives the impression it was less of a deal
between Trump and a random Russian and
more of a deal between Trump and Putin.
t also came with a lot of bluster.
By December 2015, Trump’s men
still had not locked in a plot of
land. Or financing. Or investors.
And Cohen was waiting on an
official invitation to Russia. “I will not let you f---
with my job and playing point person,” Cohen
texted Sater between Christmas and New Year’s,
according to correspondence first released by
Buzzfeed and confirmed by Forbes. “I still have no
numbers from anyone who is allegedly involved in
this deal, other than the fact I will have whatever
invite I need within 48 hours. Not you or anyone
you know will embarrass me in front of Mr. T
when he asks me what is happening.”
Cohen told Sater he was done working with
him, and the text stream devolved into some-
thing like a souring love affair. “Please don’t do
this, Michael,” Sater wrote.
“We’re done,” Cohen responded. “Enough. I
told you last week that you thinking you are
running point in this is inaccurate. You are
putting my job in jeopardy and making me look
incompetent. I gave you two months and then
best you send me is some bull---- f---- garbage
invite by some no name clerk at a third-tier bank.
So I am telling you enough as of right now.
Enough! I will handle this myself.”
Cohen, who did not respond to a request for
comment on this article, reached out to the
office of Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov.
On January 20, 2016, he heard back from
Peskov’s assistant. They talked for 20 minutes
about a tower in Moscow, and Cohen came away
impressed, according to the Mueller report.
Cohen updated Trump, remarking that it would
be nice if the Trump Organization had assistants
who were as good as the Kremlin’s, the report
says.
Sater texted Cohen the next day. “Call me
when you have a few minutes to chat,” he wrote.
“It’s about Putin. They called today.”
Money has a way of repairing relationships.
Cohen and Sater eventually sketched out plans
to travel to Russia. Cohen talked to Trump about
it, and the candidate said he would be willing to
go as well, so long as Cohen could “lock and
load” on the deal, according to the Mueller
report. Cohen settled on a rough timeline: “My
trip before Cleveland,” he texted Sater, referenc-
ing the Republican National Convention.
“Trump once he becomes the nominee.”
On May 5, 2016, Sater followed up with Cohen,
offering promising news. “Peskov would like to
invite you as his guest to the St. Petersburg
Forum, which is Russia’s Davos. It’s June 16-19.
He wants to meet there with you and possibly
introduce you to either Putin or [Russian prime
minister Dmitry] Medvedev.”
But Sater was apparently bluffing. He now
says he never actually had an invitation from
Peskov, although he was confident he would meet
some heavy hitters at the conference. When the
Peskov invitation failed to materialize, Cohen
called off the trip, according to the Mueller
report, and checked in with Trump. But he did
not tell the boss the deal was off, since there still
seemed to be a chance it could come back to life
in the closing months of the campaign. Or
possibly afterward, when Trump would return to
just being Donald Trump, private citizen.
What ultimately killed Trump Moscow was
not all the bluster, nor the ties to Russian
oligarchs, nor even the limited financial upside.
When asked why the deal ended, in a sworn
congressional hearing, Cohen pointed to one
part of the plan that went awry: “He won the
presidency.”
Kiev protests:
Political turmoil in
Ukraine preceded
a Russian takeover
of Crimea, which in
turn prompted U.S.
sanctions against
Putin’s regime. Those
measures put a dent
in Moscow’s real
estate market—and
Trump’s potential
windfall.
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