“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected”

Developments on Day 221 of the Trump Administration:

Russian-Linked Businessman to Trump Lawyer Cohen: “We Can Make Him President”

Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen approached the Kremlin in January 2016 for help with efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, an episode that may have spurred Russian involvement in the Trump campaign for President.

Cohen made the appeal after months of discussions with Russian-born businessman Felix Sater, a long-time contact of Trump, who bragged that the deal could link Trump’s business affairs to his political ambitions — with the Kremlin’s assistance.

See How Donald Trump, Running for President, Sought Deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow

Amid a series of e-mails to Cohen, the Vice President of the Trump Organization, Sater declared, “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

A friend of Cohen’s since their childhood in Brooklyn, Sater foresaw a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Moscow: “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.”

His plans include videos of Trump speaking effusively about Russia, a Trump visit to Moscow, and Putin’s praise of Trump’s skills as a businessman: “If he says it we own this election.”

Sater said he had financing for the Trump Tower from VTB Bank, an entity under US sanctions for involvement in Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. But by January, the deal appeared to have stalled, with no government permits or financing.

That is when Cohen wrote Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov — using a generic address for Peskov’s office rather than the spokesman’s direct e-mail — for help:

Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City. Without getting into lengthy specifics, the communication between our two sides has stalled.

As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance. I respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that I might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. I thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to hearing from you soon.

In a statement on Monday, also provided to Congressional investigators, Cohen tried to distance himself from the episode: “[Felix Sater] has sometimes used colorful language and has been prone to ‘salesmanship’. I ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia.”

Cohen said he did not recall receiving a response from Peskov or having further contact with Russian officials about the project.

However, Cohen also ensured that Donald Trump was linked to the affair. He said that he discussed the deal three times with Trump and that Trump signed a letter of intent with the company on October 28, 2015.

According to Cohen, Trump would have been paid for the use of his name by a Moscow-based developer called I.C. Expert Investment Co. After Trump’s signature of the letter of intent, the Trump Organization began consulting architects and seeking finance.

White House special counsel Ty Cobb maintained that Trump knew nothing about Cohen’s e-mail to the Kremlin.

A Prelude to Further Contacts?

Congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller appear to be investigating the incident as a possible prelude for Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election, including further meetings with Trump advisors.

The Sater-Cohen exchanges are part of information turned over by the Trump Organization to the House Intelligence Committee. Some of Sater’s e-mails were then given by an unknown source to The New York Times, while The Washington Post obtained Cohen’s appeals to Peskov.

Before the revelation of the e-mails, Sater had spoken of his involvement in the Trump Tower proposal in interviews with a Russian outlet and then with Talking Points Memo. The story finally got high-profile attention over the weekend through an article in The Washington Post.

Sater — despite convictions for assault and for stock fraud — has worked with the Trump Organization for more than a decade as a broker for deals. He bragged in his e-mails to Cohen of how he arranged for Ivanka Trump to sit in Putin’s private chair in the Kremlin during a trip to Moscow in 2006.

But Trump has repeatedly denied more than a passing relationship with Sater, saying he would struggle to recognize the businessman.

Trump also said in July 2016, “I have nothing to do with Russia….You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida.”

He reiterated in October during the second Presidential debate, “I don’t deal there, I have no businesses there, I have no loans from Russia.”

Trump talks in 2013 about “doing a Trump Tower in Moscow”:

Report: Mueller Investigating Trump Role in Statement on Trump Jr. Meeting

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Donald Trump’s role in a misleading statement about the June 2016 meeting between Kremlin-linked envoys and Donald Trump Jr.; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Days after the story broke last month over Trump Jr.’s arrangement of the meeting through brokers for Trump-linked Azerbaijani billionaire Aras Agalarov, White House officials revealed that Trump Sr. dictated the initial statement by his son about the meeting.

That statement falsely claimed the discussion was about “adoptions”. But as Trump Jr.’s e-mail exchange with the British broker, Rob Goldstone, later revealed, the meeting in Trump Tower was to consider a Russian offer of material damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

A “person familiar with Mueller’s strategy” said the Special Counsel’s team want to establish whether or not Trump made a “knowingly false statement”.

Trump Refuses to Name Russia as Security Threat

Donald Trump, at a press conference alongside the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, declines to label Russia as a security threat.

A Finnish reporter referred to Niinisto’s concern about the security in the Baltic region and Russian planes flying there without transponders and asked, “Would you consider Russia as a security threat?”

Trump replied:

We consider that a very, very important part of the world….And so I would consider many countries threats, but these are all threats that we’d be able to handle if we have to. Hopefully we won’t have to handle them, but if we do we will handle them.

Hard-Right Activist Bolton Shut Out from Seeing Trump

Hard-right political activist John Bolton has been blocked from seeing Donald Trump, an apparent move by the recently-appointed Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Bolton, the hawkish US Ambassador to the UN in the George W. Bush Administration, has long lobbied Trump over issues such as the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. He was considered by Trump for some time as a possible Secretary of State before Rex Tillerson was finally named.

But Kelly, the retired general who took over in late July, has been trying to limit propaganda and misleading information that has regularly been sent to Trump.

In an opinion piece for The National Review recycling his attempt to kill the Iran nuclear agreement, Bolton wrote:

I offer the Iran nonpaper now as a public service, since staff changes at the White House have made presenting it to President Trump impossible. Although he was once kind enough to tell me “come in and see me any time,” those days are now over.

7 Members of Infrastructure Council Resign Over Cyber-Security

Seven of the 27 members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council resign over the Trump Administration’s approach to cyber-security and broader concerns that Donald Trump and his advisors have undermined the “moral infrastructure” of the US.

In their resignation letter, the signatories also cited Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accords on climate change and his statements after white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, which overshadowed a showcase event on the administration’s infrastructure plans.

“The moral infrastructure of our Nation is the foundation on which our physical infrastructure is built,” the resigning members wrote. “The Administration’s actions undermine that foundation.”

They criticized “insufficient attention to the growing threats to the cybersecurity of the critical systems upon which all Americans depend”.

Trump has refused to accept the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia pursued cyber-operations to influence the 2016 Presidential election. In May, after meeting Vladimir Putin, he proposed a cyber-security task force with the Russians.

The administration has also missed a self-imposed deadline for presenting a comprehensive cyber-security plan.

Trump Gave Speech in Arizona Amid Anger Over Crowd Size

Bloomberg gives context for Donald Trump’s aggressive, ranting speech in Arizona last speech, explaining that he was disappointed in the crowd size for the rally.

During the speech, Trump declared that there were “15,000” people in the Phoenix Convention Center. In fact, there was a far smaller number as the rally began. While the audience grew during introductory speeches, it was still only about 10,000 when Trump took the stage, according to a city of Phoenix spokeswoman. Many left before the end of Trump’s 75-minute address.

The crowd was matched by thousands of protesters — falsely described by Trump as “a few” — outside the center.

“Three people familiar with the matter” said Trump blamed a longtime aide, George Gigicos, the former White House director of advance who organized the event as a contractor to the Republican National Committee. Trump later had his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, inform Gigicos that he would never manage a rally again.

Trump tried to cover up any disappointment with his opening line in Phoenix, “Wow, what a crowd!” And on Monday, he was still insisting, at a White House news conference with Finland President Sauli Niinisto, “You saw the massive crowd we had.”

Trump is well-known for his concern with crowd sizes, having instructed his staff to lie about the smaller-than-desired audience at his January inauguration.

GOP Congressman: “Trump Is Our Asshole”

Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, tells a Young Republicans meeting, “He’s just like he is on TV. He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”

Four people at the meeting verified the comment, and others wrote about it on social media. Hunter’s chief of staff did not respond to e-mails for comment, and the legislator’s voice mailbox was full.

Hunter was one of the few GOP Congressional representatives to support the candidacy of Trump, who later named the legislator his envoy to Congress.