TPM - "5 Points On The Moscow Deal Trump And Co. Pursued During The Campaign"

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/five-points-moscow-deal-trump-sater-cohen

By SAM THIELMAN Published AUGUST 28, 2017 5:58 PM

There’s been a steady drip-drip-drip of information over the past 24 hours stemming from correspondence that the Trump Organization was turning over to investigators on the House Intelligence Committee, which is probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. New details about a development proposed by the Trump Organization in Moscow first appeared to leak to the Washington Post, then to the New York Times and Bloomberg.

The day-long stream of new details, which gel with some of TPM’s reporting from earlier this summer, show more clearly than ever before the extent of the contacts between President Donald Trump’s business associates and the intertwined worlds of Russian real estate and government.

1. Trump associates explored the deal right up until the first presidential primaries
TPM reported earlier this month that Felix Sater, a business associate of Trump’s who’d been secretly convicted of securities fraud in the late 1990s, was trying to find a way to build a Trump Moscow tower as late as November or December 2015, six months into the U.S. presidential campaign.

Plans for a Trump Moscow project ultimately fell through, however; Sater told TPM it was because Trump became President, but emails between Sater and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and frequent press surrogate, reportedly say that the deal stalled out in January 2016 over land permits.

2. Michael Cohen was the lead negotiator on the prospective deal


snip - read it all at the link above - worthwhile read.