Penthouse for Putin: Trump firm wanted to give Russian leader US$50 million flat, broker says
- Russian ex-adviser to president’s property company claims he also tried to give one of the proposed Moscow flats to Madonna
- At the same time, former lawyer Michael Cohen admits he lied about the Russian real estate deal ending before Trump’s presidential run
US President Donald Trump’s company considered offering Russian President Vladimir Putin a US$50 million penthouse in a planned skyscraper in Moscow to make the building more desirable to rich buyers, according to the Russian-born property developer who was broker on the project.
Felix Sater, a felon, ex-government informant and former Trump business associate, said on Thursday he came up with the idea as a way to reap extra profit from Trump Tower Moscow, which he said would have brought in as much as US$500 million if it had been built. Trump’s lawyer at the time Michael Cohen approved of the idea, Sater said, adding that it came to him while “spitballing” marketing schemes.
It wasn’t clear how seriously the idea was pursued or whether Trump knew about it.
Trump has issued repeated denials. “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” he wrote on Twitter in January 2017, shortly before he was inaugurated.
The Moscow tower deal was scrapped in 2016, though the reasons are still unclear. The disclosure about the penthouse proposal was first reported by Buzzfeed News, which claimed the idea was pitched during the 2016 presidential campaign.