Trump Tower Moscow
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Trump Tower Moscow

Trump Tower Moscow, also known as the Moscow Project, was a series of proposals by the Trump Organization to develop a Trump skyscraper in Russia. Michael Cohen testified in February 2019 that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were regularly briefed about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. Trump Jr. said to US Congress that he was only "peripherally aware of it".

No such project was ever built, but the idea continued to receive press coverage due to Donald Trump's election as president of the United States and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election aimed at promoting Trump's candidacy. In November 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to US Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow in a prosecution brought by the office of the special counsel.

Donald Trump is reported as having first envisaged a Trump building in Moscow during a visit to Moscow in 1987, which he also mentioned in his own 1987 book The Art of the Deal. Trump wrote that he had talked with Yuri Dubinin about "building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government." The development was originally envisaged as a joint venture with the Soviet Union's tourism agency, Goscom Intourist, although the plan ultimately fell through. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Trump's interest in a Moscow tower continued. In 2005, the Trump Organization signed a one-year contract for a construction project in Moscow with the Bayrock Group real estate firm. One of the firm's principals was Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with mob connections. Sater identified a site for a Trump skyscraper. It was stipulated any spas or fitness areas be branded "The Spa by Ivanka Trump."

That proposal fell through, but Sater continued to maintain a relationship with Trump. After holding the Miss Universe pageant in Russia in 2013, Trump tweeted "TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next."

A New York architect had completed plans for a bold glass obelisk 100 stories high by September 2015, with the Trump logo on multiple sides. The planned Trump Tower would have been the tallest skyscraper in Europe. The proposed site was a location in the Moscow International Business Center, near the Moscow River.

Trump launched his campaign for the presidency in June 2015. Multiple sources have reported that Trump signed a letter of intent to develop the building, provisionally named Trump World Tower Moscow, in October 2015. Throughout the primary and general election campaigns, he consistently praised Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin, while repeatedly making public statements that he had no business dealings with Russia, saying that he had "nothing to do with Russia" and "I know nothing about Russia ... I don't deal there." However, in November 2018 Trump told reporters that "we were thinking about building a building" in Moscow, adding that "everybody knew about it" and "there would have been nothing wrong with it".

According to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Trump's interest in a possible Moscow project continued through most of the primary campaign, ending in June 2016, an assertion at odds with Rudy Giuliani's recollection of events. Giuliani later said (in 2019) that the tower remained an "active proposal" throughout the campaign, and that Trump recalled discussing it with Cohen, possibly as late as October or November 2016. He quoted Trump as having said the discussions were "going on from the day I announced to the day I won." However, Giuliani later backtracked from those statements.

The proposal came back to public attention in November 2018, when Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to US Congress about the issue, in a prosecution brought by the office of the special counsel.

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