BuzzFeed Hits Back, Publishes Evidence of Trump Tower Moscow Plans

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BuzzFeed News hit back at Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday night, publishing a massive treasure trove of documents proving the president’s involvement in detailed plans for a Trump Tower Moscow.

BuzzFeed’s new report specifically contradicts Giuliani‘s recent claims that there were “no plans” drawn up for Trump Tower Moscow. Giuliani said in a New Yorker interview that plans for Trump Tower Moscow did not extend beyond a mere “a letter of intent.”

“The only thing that ever happened was that Trump’s team submitted a letter of intent about a possible project in Moscow that never went beyond that,” Giuliani falsely told the New Yorker. “No money was ever paid, no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file. Nothing ever happened to it.”

The Moscow talks of course did result in what is known as a letter of intent and this was widely reported in the media weeks ago. (A letter of intent is a non-binding legal agreement that sets forth basic parameters for formal discussions about the huge real estate project.) But documents show that very detailed plans for Trump Tower Moscow were created, involving many different people.

BuzzFeed said that the documents it obtained over more than a one-year period of investigative research and reporting show that architects and developers drew up detailed plans for a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.

A New York-based architect in 2015 completed plans for how the Russian property would look, imagining a building that could have been 100 stories high with prominent Trump logos. According to documents published by BuzzFeed, the architect was in contact with Trump‘s then-attorney Michael Cohen.

Documents signed by Trump in September 2015 stated that Trump Tower Moscow would include “approximately 250 first class, luxury residential condominiums,” the report said. It also which would have included a spa and fitness facility dubbed “The Spa By Ivanka Trump,” according to BuzzFeed.

Russian developers and construction firms were going to build the Trump Tower in Moscow.

Giuliani appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, saying that Trump remembered having conversations about the real estate project with his former attorney, Cohen, “throughout 2016” and “as far as October, November.” Then on Monday Giuliani tried to walk back those comments, maintaining they were “hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”

Cohen last November admitted that the talks about Trump Tower Moscow lasted until June 2016 — six months longer than he had previously claimed in congressional testimony.

BuzzFeed reported a week ago that Trump had directed Cohen to lie before Congress about the plans to build the Trump Tower Moscow, and that Robert Mueller had evidence of the claim.

BuzzFeed’s editors have consistently stood by their initial report even after Mueller’s office issued a statement claiming that certain unspecified details in the report were not accurate.

Some key facts in this drama are still not known. For example, we don’t know which specific facts Mueller believes were inaccurately reported by Buzzfeed. And we don’t know if Donald Trump directed his underling Michael Cohen to commit perjury, or what evidence Mueller has concerning these possible crimes.

One thing it appears we do know for certain, however, is that Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Cohen and others did extensively lie about the Trump Organization‘s business dealings with Russia before the 2016 election. And therefore we know that a massive fraud was perpetrated upon the American people, and this is why Donald Trump is president.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.