Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that negotiations about building a Trump Tower in Moscow likely extended until the end of the 2016 presidential campaign.
“It’s our understanding that they went on throughout 2016,” said Mr. Giuliani on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There weren’t a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can’t be sure of the exact date. But the president can remember having conversations with him [Michael Cohen] about it.”
Asked if they went on throughout 2016, Mr. Giuliani said, “Yeah, probably up to, could be up to as far as October, November.”
WATCH: @rudygiuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, says that negotiations over Trump Tower Moscow likely went up to the 2016 election. #MTP pic.twitter.com/ctceKHLIZN
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 20, 2019
Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s point man on the project, testified before Congress that discussions about Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016.
He was sentenced last month to three years in prison for lying to Congress, campaign-finance violations, and other crimes after investigations by both special counsel Robert Mueller and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
“But the president’s recollection of it is that the thing had petered out quite a bit,” Mr. Giuliani said. “They sent a letter of intent in, they didn’t even know where to send it, they knew so little about it. They finally got it straightened out and then they abandoned the project.”
He said Mr. Trump has little recollection of the details because he was immersed in the presidential race.
“And 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 … his concentration was 100 percent running for president,” Mr. Giuliani said.
He added that Mr. Cohen “was the key guy on this project.”
Mr. Giuliani’s timeline conflicts with one provided by Mr. Cohen to the Mueller investigation.
Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he said project talks ended in January 2016 when they actually continued until June, then stopped.
Last week, Mr. Giuliani raised a stink when he said on CNN that there could have been Russia collusion by the campaign, but not by the president.
There has been no public evidence of campaign collusion. Mr. Giuliani later amended his remarks to say he knows of no collusion.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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