BuzzFeed News delves into intriguing past of convicted criminal and former Trump business partner Felix Sater who worked for years as an informant for the U.S.government and who now is of interest to investigators in the Russia probe.
“At the direction of the FBI,” the Department of Justice stated in a newly unsealed court filing, Sater traveled to the Middle East after 9/11 to collect “valuable intelligence” on “key leaders in al Qaeda,” and he helped “in a number of other areas, including Russian organized crime.” In other court filings, the Justice Department said Sater’s work on behalf of the United States “involves 18 foreign governments” as well as “various families of La Cosa Nostra,” and that his help was “of an extraordinary depth and breadth.”
Sater testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December, and BuzzFeed News is revealing his prepared statement for the first time. In it, Sater lists numerous examples of the ways in which he has assisted the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies.
Sater ... is expected to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee in April. He also has been questioned by Mueller’s team, several of whom he knows from his past undercover work. It’s almost certain that Sater has sensitive information about Trump’s business dealings, but he won’t say what he was asked or what information he provided.
President Trump has claimed not to know Sater, but the two were in business together for years, and Sater attended Trump's invite-only election night victory party in Manhattan in 2016.
Trump has denied knowing the man who had an office three doors down from his own and who helped his company explore deals across the globe. In a 2013 deposition, Trump said of Sater, “If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”
Over dinner last week at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Sater was clearly hurt when he spoke about the president’s statement. “It’s very upsetting but, you know, what am I going to do?” Sater said. “Start calling him a liar?” Sater said he hasn’t talked with Trump in a couple of years, but he sees an angle to keeping in Trump’s good graces.
“First thing I plan to do when Trump leaves office, whether it's next week, in 2020 or four years later, is march right into his office and say, ‘Let's build Trump Moscow.’
“I'm serious.”
Sater also has known Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen since they were teens, and his interactions with Cohen are of particular interest to the special counsel.
In 2015, Sater emailed Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow, bragging about they could get their boy elected and get the building built with Vladimir Putin's blessing and approval. In 2016, Sater invited Cohen to an economic conference in St Petersburg and mentioned the possibility of Cohen's meeting Putin. And in February 2017, Sater and Cohen were involved in delivering a plan to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn that would have lifted U.S. sanctions on Russia.
Sater tells BuzzFeed News he does not actually know Putin, and in the case of Trump Tower Moscow, he was just trying to work a deal.
Read more: How A Player In The Trump-Russia Scandal Led A Double Life As An American Spy (Buzzfeed News)
Felix Sater House Intelligence Committee Statement December 2017