Can't wait to see the raw butthurt from Trumps 2020 re-election. Going to be epic!
Mr Trump’s plan for a skyscraper in Moscow dates as far back as 1996, when the future US president paid a visit to the Russian capital to check out building sites on land being developed by an American company.
He revived the idea in 2013 during a visit to Moscow as owner of the Miss Universe pageant, and reportedly scouted a potential site before the project again failed.
The tower idea came back yet again in October 2015, when Andrey Rozov, an obscure Russian property developer, signed a letter of intent sent by Mr Cohen to advance the construction of a Trump Tower featuring 250 luxury condos, no fewer than 15 floors of hotel rooms, commercial and office space, a fitness centre and an Ivanka Trump spa.
It would have been a lucrative deal for Trump‘s company, handing it $4m (£3.1m) in upfront fees plus potentially millions more from a cut on everything from food and banquet fees to spa charges.
However, the project soon ran aground again. According to Mr Cohen’s testimony in 2017 and his plea agreement, negotiations with Mr Rozov’s group stalled, prompting the lawyer to turn to aides of Mr Putin to move the project forward.
Mr Cohen told congressional investigators last year that he had sent an email in January 2016 to Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesman. He told the committee he never heard back from Mr Peskov and the tower deal collapsed by the end of that month.
But according to Mr Cohen’s new statement to prosecutors, the tower deal remained viable as late as June 2016, after Mr Trump had vanquished his Republican presidential rivals and was mounting his general election campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Mr Cohen said he had spoken by phone with an assistant to Mr Peskov in January 2016 and outlined the project and “requested assistance in moving the project forward.”