NEWS: Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to docs turned over to investigators https://t.co/pHs3Oa8a5C
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) October 2, 2017
To quote Mr. Cohen, staying on message, “Says who?”…
Associates of President Trump and his company have turned over documents to federal investigators that reveal two previously unreported contacts from Russia during the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.
In one case, Trump’s personal attorney and a business associate exchanged emails weeks before the Republican National Convention about the lawyer possibly traveling to an economic conference in Russia that would be attended by top Russian financial and government leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the correspondence.
In the other case, the same Trump attorney, Michael Cohen, received a proposal in late 2015 for a Moscow residential project from a company founded by a billionaire who once served in the upper house of the Russian parliament, these people said. The previously unreported inquiry marks the second proposal for a Trump-branded Moscow project that was delivered to the company during the presidential campaign and has since come to light.
Cohen declined the invitation to the economic conference, citing the difficulty of attending so close to the GOP convention, according to people familiar with the matter. And Cohen rejected the Moscow building plan.
Nonetheless, the information about the interactions has been provided to congressional committees as well as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as they investigate whether Trump associates coordinated with Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election, according to people familiar with the inquiries who, like others cited in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the inquiry…
…[T]he new disclosures add to an emerging picture in which Trump’s business and campaign were repeatedly contacted by Russians with interests in business and politics. Trump’s son, his son-in-law, his campaign chairman, low-level foreign policy advisers and, now, Cohen, one of his closest business confidants, all fielded such inquiries in the weeks before or after Trump accepted the nomination.
The documents also underscore the Trump company’s long-standing interest in doing business in Moscow.
In a statement Monday, Cohen stressed that he did not attend the economic forum. “I did not accept this invitation,” he said. “I have never been to Russia.”…
Information, according to the article, provided by Felix Sater. There’s an old training joke about a dog being “extremely loyal”, meaning “too dumb not to comply even with a bad command, also too dumb to get themselves out of the mess they get into by complying”…
******
Paul Manafort, on the other hand: Probably not that kind of loyal, because he’s made a rich living working for Very Bad Dudes for quite a long time:
Manafort wanted a Russian oligarch to see what a good job he was doing on the Trump campaign, a job he took for free https://t.co/yHqOALeehv
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 2, 2017
He wasn’t getting paid by the Trump campaign, but he’s not the sort of guy takes on a job “for free”.
Russiagate Open Thread: <em>Meanwhile… </em>Post + Comments (116)