The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand reports that Senate Intelligence Committee investigators are looking closely at Donald Trump's 1996 trip to Russia, which he took to survey locations for a proposed high-rise building project.
Democrats have always considered Trump’s decades-long real-estate career—and, in particular, his pursuit of massive building projects in Russia—to be fundamental to any serious investigation of whether the president has been compromised by a foreign entity. The Senate Intelligence Committee, despite being under Republican control, evidently does, too; the panel has in recent weeks homed in on Trump’s 1996 visit to Russia, where he scoped out potential construction sites and announced his plans to invest $250 million in two high-rise towers.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee recently interviewed architect Ted Liebman, who sketched a proposed Trump International Hotel for Trump to present to Moscow city officials during his 1996 trip, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Senate investigators have also been particularly interested in David Geovanis, an American businessman who reportedly helped organize the 1996 Russia trip and worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in the early 2000s.
Cohen said earlier this week that he believed it possible that Trump was compromised during the election because of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations. On Tuesday, Cohen named Calamari as someone familiar with Trump's alleged illicit business dealings, including potential tax and insurance fraud.
In November 1996, The Moscow Times reported on Trump's intentions.
Trump told a Wednesday press conference at the Baltschug Hotel that he is planning to put his name to a luxury residential center of at least 30,000 square meters -- to be called Trump International -- near Triumfalnaya Ploshchad in central Moscow.
"We have an understanding that we will be doing it," he said. A second project is also in the works for a Moscow Trump Tower, an immense residential building of approximately 55,000 square meters that is planned for the Prospekt Mira area. The exact location has not yet been made public.
The first building in the series -- and the one with the greatest degree of commitment -- is the Trump International, scheduled to be completed before the turn of the century as part of the Ducat Place development on Ulitsa Gasheka. The Ducat site is being developed by Liggett-Ducat, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Brooke Group, Ltd.
Liggett-Ducat, which holds a 98-year lease on the site, has been working with Trump through the person of Bennett LeBow, the president of Brooke Group and a well-known figure in the U.S. cigarette industry and investment circles.
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David Geovanis, Liggett-Ducat's director of real estate, said Trump is also pursuing plans to develop a hotel in Moscow.
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The idea of building in Moscow was rumored to have come to Trump after he saw the rising number of wealthy Russians signing on for apartments in his high-rent New York residential addresses, which include Trump Palace, Trump Parc and Trump Plaza.
Trump Lays Bet on New Moscow Skyline (Moscow Times)
The Democrats’ Nonstop Trump Investigations (The Atlantic)