Mother Jones: Donald Trump Lied to Conceal His Moscow Business Partner

[kpete]

Did you know when Trump told you Putin was no killer, he was pursuing a Moscow deal needing the govt's ok?


Perhaps this was his greatest deception of the 2016 campaign.
As he was running for president, Trump was hiding this project from the American public, and he was insisting he barely knew the man at the center of it.

DAVID CORN SEP. 12, 2017 6:00 AM

Link to tweet

Donald Trump has told many lies and falsehoods. He’s lied about the Russia scandal. He’s lied about his ties to organized crime. Perhaps he’s lied so much that freshly excavated prevarications don’t register greatly. Yet recent news reports revealing that Trump was pursuing a huge development deal in Moscow in late 2015 and early 2016 show that during the campaign Trump committed a tremendous act of deception.

This mammoth duplicity was encompassed in a small fib. On December 2, 2015, during an interview with an Associated Press reporter, Trump was asked about his relationship with a fellow named Felix Sater. Trump, who was then the front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination contest, replied, “Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it. I’m not that familiar with him.” He referred questions to his Trump Organization. One of his lawyers, Alan Garten, subsequently told the AP that Sater once prospected for real estate deals for the Trump Organization and that the arrangement lasted for six months in 2010.

What neither Trump nor Garten said was that—at that very moment—Trump was in the middle of the deal to build a Trump Tower in the Russian capital and that Sater had put together the venture. As he was running for president, Trump was hiding this project from the American public, and he was insisting he barely knew the man at the center of it. This was serious deceit.

...........


In subsequent years, Trump issued conflicting statements about his relationship with Sater. In a 2011 deposition, Trump acknowledged that he used to speak to Sater “for a period of time.” Yet in a 2013 deposition, Trump said, “If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.” Trump had plenty of reason to distance himself from his felonious onetime business partner. Sater wasn’t simply controversial; he posed a serious risk for Trump. If Trump had been aware of Sater’s felonious and fraudulent past before the Times story came out, such knowledge could taint business deals the Trump Organization made involving Bayrock and possibly create a legal liability.

So it was no surprise when Trump in late November 2015 acted as if he had never met Sater. But now it’s obvious that his dishonest response to the question about Sater was far more significant.




the rest:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/how-donald-trump-lied-to-conceal-his-moscow-business-partner/

[dalton99a]

1. A lot of the noise that Trump created during the campaign was to drown out reports about Sater

if you look back at the timing

[Achilleaze]

2. Lying is the top republican "family value"

as exemplified by their role model: sleazeball casino hustler, the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief.

[Cracklin Charlie]

3. Did Putin tell Trump...

He could have his tower if he ran for president?

Then, Putin decided to make him win?