In May 2016 Felix Sater promised Cohen a "mind blowing" "stream of business opportunities"
for Trump if Cohen attended the St. Petersburg economic forum in June 2016.
This comes from the documents BuzzFeed released yesterday.
According to the messages, all the way into mid-June they continued to talk about the forum, an official invitation was issued to Cohen, and they were discussing getting Cohen a visa -- when Cohen suddenly said they needed to talk. And that’s the end of the document dump.
One thing that struck me was Sater saying that attending the forum would make Cohen a hero and "the whole campaign team can kiss your ass." Why would the campaign team care about any business deals Trump might be plotting in Russia? Wasn't the campaign team supposed to be focusing on getting Trump elected to the Presidency? Not on $100 mill business deals in Russia?
The messages below are from p. 260-265.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5719169-Trump-Moscow.html
SATER: “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 Medvedev, as they are not sure if 1 or both will be there.
(SNIP)
SATER: Please confirm that works for you.
COHEN: Works for me.
SATER: Not only will you probably sit with #1 or #2 but the whole business community is there I’ll be running around setting nice $100 mill deals.
And you will come back and the whole campaign team can kiss your ass. Keep this very close to the vest, otherwise half a dozen idiots will try to jump on our coat tails. If it goes great, you are a hero. If it doesn’t all you did was go to an economic forum to check out business. Bro this is why you got me working in the shadows. I will make sure you are clean as a whistle either way. For you 0 downside. But I know this is going to turn into 1, a major win for Trump, makes you the hero who bagged the elephant and 2. Sets up a stream of business opportunities that will be mind blowing. All from one short trip.
