President Donald Trump was involved in talks about a Trump tower building project in Moscow throughout 2016 — including in the days prior to his November election, the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Sunday.
In a startling admission during an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Giuliani conceded a much longer timeline for project conversations than has been previously disclosed.
“It’s our understanding that [talks] went on throughout 2016 — there weren't a lot of them, but there were conversations,” Giuliani said. “Probably up to — could be up to as far as October, November. Any time during that period they could have talked about it.”
Giuliani said Trump’s “recollection of it is that the thing had petered out quite a bit.”
“They sent a letter of intent in,” he said. “They didn't even know where to send it. They knew so little about it. They finally got it straightened out. Then they abandoned the project. That's about as much as he can remember of it because, remember, 2015, 2016, he's running against 16 people for president of the United States. And I know that. I was with him for like five months. All his concentration was 100 percent on running for president.”
There’s been increased public scrutiny of the Trump Moscow proposal since November, when the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted lying to Congress about discussions surrounding the project within the Trump Organization.
Cohen had told congressional committees the discussions dried up in January 2016.
Prosecutors said Cohen lied in order to “minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1,” referring to Trump.
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