Giuliani says Trump signing letter of intent for Moscow tower is meaningless

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, dismissed the significance of a new report that Trump signed a letter of intent in 2015 that preceded negotiations for a Trump property in Moscow.

"That was the end of it," Giuliani told The New York Daily News. "It means nothing but an expression of interest that means very little unless it goes to a contract, and it never did."

Giuliani also described the news as "bulls---" in an interview with the newspaper only hours after CNN's Chris Cuomo displayed a copy of the letter of intent on his nightly news program on Tuesday.

The letter, which was dated Oct. 28, 2015, and signed by Trump, pertains to negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The project has come under scrutiny since the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted last month that he lied to Congress about discussions revolving around the project.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/giuliani-says-trump-signing-letter-of-intent-for-moscow-tower-is-meaningless/ar-BBRav5x?li=BBnb7Kz

[elleng]

1. Right, his 'intentions' are meaningless.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

2. Yes....

SO meaningless someone drafted it and he took his pen, and signed it. Doesn't mean a thing. Just practicing signing stuff his lawyer draws up. That's all. That's all.

[Jarqui]

3. It is proof that he had a signed deal with Russia for millions of dollars

He also had a signed memorandum with Agularov in Nov 2013

Those deals contradict what he told the American people many times over - lying to downplay his relationship with Russia.

(naturally, the above is not news around here)

[unblock]

4. as usual, he's saying something without realizing the implications.

"letters of intent are meaningless" is the sort of thing lawyers often say because these sorts of "agreements to agree" are very nearly completely unenforceable.

it's not a deal, and it's not even a binding commitment to sign a deal. you can't be trapped into signing a bad deal, after all, so there's still room to get out of it, there's still room to negotiate.

so it's "meaningless" *to a lawyer* because you can't really use it to accomplish anything in practice.

(very rarely, someone might sign a letter of intent in bad faith, when they really had no intention of doing the deal. if that causes damage, then it's a problem. but that's a very rare thing, and hard to prove.)


but then, what's the point of a letter of intent? well, it shows a commitment. it shows that you're actively negotiating to do a deal.


what rudy did, then, is *clarify* that the document *had no other purpose* but to show that he was actively negotiating a deal regarding a hotel in moscow.


he was trying to do a deal in russia. the *entire point* of that document was to put in writing that he (and his counterparties) were trying to do a deal in russia.

[torius]

5. The letter had riders, too

It wasn't just the letter. It showed a lot of negotiations had already taken place.