Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday said President Trump had put his John Hancock on a letter of intent to develop a real estate project in Moscow — an about-face from a weekend interview in which he said the document had not been signed.
The president’s personal attorney told CNN on Sunday that “no one signed” the letter to proceed with negotiations to build a tower in the Russian capital.
But he reversed course in an interview with Reuters after CNN reported late Tuesday that it had obtained a copy of the letter, dated Oct. 28, 2015, signed by Trump, who had announced his candidacy in June that year.
“If I said it, I made a mistake,” Giuliani said of his earlier denial about the president having signed the letter. “There’s nothing wrong with his signing it. When he did it, he wasn’t president yet.”
The document set the stage for negotiations to build a Trump Tower — a project the president did not reveal to the public during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen has admitted that the Trump Organization was secretly hashing out a deal to build the property as the president was preaching for warmer US-Russian ties on the campaign trail.
“It was a real estate project. There was a letter of intent to go forward, but no one signed it,” Giuliani told CNN on Sunday when asked about the non-binding letter.
The document also is signed by Andrey Rozov, owner of I.C. Expert Investment Co., the Russian company that would have been responsible for developing the project for condos, a hotel and commercial property, according to CNN.
The project — which was eventually scrapped — would’ve yielded the Trump Organization a $4 million upfront fee with no upfront costs, as well as a percentage of the sales.
During a guilty plea in federal court, Cohen said he had pursued the deal to build the property on Trump’s behalf — and had repeatedly briefed the president, his family and others on the progress of the effort — until June 2016.
He had earlier told Congress the deal went belly up that January.
On Sunday, Giuliani indicated that Cohen may have pursued discussions up to November 2016.
Trump, repeatedly on the campaign trail and since, has denied having anything to do with Russia, assailed special counsel Robert Mueller and his team and denied any collusion with the Russians,
The president has argued that he was allowed to continue seeking business opportunities during the 2016 campaign in the event he ended up losing the election.
“We had a position to possibly do a deal, to build a building of some kind in Moscow,” Trump told reporters before leaving for the G20 summit in Argentina.
“There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning.”
The Trump Organization had also raised the possibility of offering a $50 million penthouse suite to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to BuzzFeed, which reported in May that the president had signed the letter.
Trump still owns his organization but said he would step away from day-to-day operations after taking office and leave its management to his sons.
President Trump signed a letter of intent to proceed with negotiations to build a tower in Moscow — despite a weekend claim by his attorney Rudy Giuliani that “no one signed” the document, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.
The letter, dated Oct. 28, 2015, which bears the president’s signature, set the stage for negotiations to build a Trump Tower in the Russian capital — a project he did not reveal to the public during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen has admitted that the Trump Organization was secretly hashing out a deal to build the property as the president was preaching for warmer US-Russian relations on the campaign trail.
“It was a real estate project. There was a letter of intent to go forward, but no one signed it,” Giuliani told CNN on Sunday when asked about the non-binding letter.
The document also is signed by Andrey Rozov, owner of I.C. Expert Investment Co., the Russian company that would have been responsible for developing the project for condos, a hotel and commercial property, according to CNN.
The project — which was eventually scrapped — would’ve yielded the Trump Organization a $4 million upfront fee with no upfront costs, as well as a percentage of the sales.
During a guilty plea in federal court, Cohen said he had pursued the deal to build the Moscow property on Trump’s behalf — and had repeatedly briefed the president, his family and others on the progress of the effort — until June 2016.
He had earlier told Congress the deal went belly up that January.
On Sunday, Giuliani indicated that Cohen may have pursued discussions up to November 2016.
Trump, repeatedly on the campaign trail and since, has denied having anything to do with Russia, assailed special counsel Robert Mueller and his team and denied any collusion with the Russians,
The president has argued that he was allowed to continue seeking business opportunities during the 2016 campaign in the event he ended up losing the election.
“We had a position to possibly do a deal, to build a building of some kind in Moscow,” Trump told reporters before leaving for the G20 summit in Argentina.
“There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning.”