'We will be in Moscow': The story of Trump's 30-year quest to expand his brand to Russia
It was a dream born in the 1980s: a gleaming Trump Tower in the heart of Soviet Moscow. For Donald Trump, that vision never died, even as he launched a presidential campaign and moved toward clinching the Republican Party nomination in 2016.
On Thursday, his former attorney Michael Cohen told a federal judge that Trump was pursuing a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout the first half of 2016 the very time the candidate was stepping out on the world stage as a political figure and breaking with the GOP by praising Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
Trumps attempt that year to expand his brand into Moscow capped a 30-year-long effort by the celebrity mogul to do business in Russia. His refusal to give up that ambition as he was campaigning for the White House now colors his public embrace of Putin, whose help Cohen sought for the project.
Again and again, Trump pursued his Russia project, traveling to Moscow and unveiling four ultimately unsuccessful plans to put his name on a building in the Russian capital before he announced he would run for president.
Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment, Trump said in a 2007 deposition. We will be in Moscow at some point.
While running for president, Trump spoke highly of Putin and criticized the Russian presidents adversaries, including international organizations like NATO and the European Union. His rhetoric seldom wavered, even as evidence began to emerge that Russia was interfering in the 2016 campaign to boost Trumps effort.
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