Trump Organization Pursues Trump Tower Moscow

The Long Pursuit

Donald Trump had been trying to build a branded tower in Moscow for decades. As early as 1987, he visited the Soviet Union to explore hotel development opportunities. After the collapse of the USSR, multiple attempts were made through various partners, none of which materialized. By 2014, the Trump Organization was once again actively pursuing a Moscow project, this time through a network of intermediaries that included Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with a complicated past who had previously worked on Trump projects.

The proposed Trump Tower Moscow was envisioned as a massive mixed-use development in the Russian capital, potentially including luxury residences, a hotel, and commercial space. Internal documents later revealed that the project included plans to offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse in the building as a marketing strategy, under the theory that having Putin as a resident would attract wealthy Russian buyers.

The Sater-Cohen Channel

Felix Sater, who maintained connections to Russian business and government figures, served as the primary intermediary for the project. In November 2015, Sater wrote to Cohen in an email: “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this.” Sater described a plan to use the Moscow project to boost Trump’s image as a dealmaker and statesman during the presidential campaign.

Cohen signed a letter of intent for the project in October 2015, and discussions with Russian entities continued well into 2016. Cohen later told Congress that negotiations ended in January 2016, but he subsequently admitted this was a lie. Discussions had actually continued until at least June 2016, deep into the presidential primary season.

Legal and Political Consequences

The Trump Tower Moscow pursuit became a central thread in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump had publicly stated during the campaign that he had “nothing to do with Russia” and “no deals” there, statements that were at best misleading given the active negotiations his company was conducting.

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in November 2018 to lying to Congress about the timeline of the Moscow project, admitting that he had falsely minimized Trump’s involvement and the duration of the negotiations in order to align his testimony with Trump’s public claims. Cohen later testified publicly before Congress that Trump had been aware of and involved in the Moscow project throughout the campaign. The episode illustrated the entanglement of Trump’s business interests with both his political ambitions and questions of foreign influence that would define much of his presidency.