Russia: We didn’t talk to anyone about a Trump real estate deal

Russia had no discussions with President Trump or anyone on his team during the 2016 elections about a proposed real estate project in Moscow, a senior Russian official told reporters Monday. "No, the Kremlin did not hold talks with anyone at all about building the tower," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to state-run TASS. Putin’s spokesman released that statement as Trump’s apparent interest in Moscow real estate dominated the Washington, D.C., media landscape over the weekend. BuzzFeed prompted the discussion with a report, since contradicted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, that the president directed then-attorney Michael Cohen to lie to federal investigators about his interest in a Moscow Trump Tower during the election.

“The conversations lasted throughout parts of 2016,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday on "Meet the Press" while discussing Cohen’s efforts to broker the project. “But the president's recollection of it is that the the thing had petered out quite a bit. They sent a letter of intent in. They didn't even know where to send it they knew so little about it.” Trump denied any financial interest in Russia throughout the campaign and in the early months of his presidency. “I have had dealings over the years where I sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many years ago,” he told NBC in May of 2017. “I had the Miss Universe pageant — which I owned for quite a while — I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that, I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, argued that Giuliani’s comments justified his committee’s ongoing investigation. “Why, two years after the fact, are we just learning this fact now, when there's been this much inquiry?” Warner asked. "I don't often feel bad for Rudy Giuliani. This morning, just seeing that interview, I almost feel bad for him. He keeps having to readjust his stories as more facts come out. So we now know that Mr. Trump or his operation was still trying to do business with Moscow up until his election. We now know that his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, gave confidential information to a Russian agent, and we don't know what that Russian agent did with that.”

Trump discussed the topic more generally in November. “There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?” the president said, as the New York Times recalled.

Putin’s team portrayed Cohen as ineffective, saying the attorney sent multiple messages to “the publicly accessible e-mail of the Russian presidential administration,” as TASS put it. Peskov added that he couldn’t say if Trump was aware of the effort. "How do we know who kept this under control and what were the issues? Trump personally or someone else?" Peskov said. ”The Americans themselves and the U.S. president personally are in a better position to judge.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/russia-we-didnt-talk-to-anyone-about-a-trump-real-estate-deal