Proof of Collusion
Page 8
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However, in a mid-2017 Forbes interview, Agalarov’s son throws even this expiration date into doubt, revealing that the Agalarovs are still in negotiations with Trump’s sons to do additional business—possibly including the building of a tower in Moscow.
Emin told Forbes that “during our discussions . . . [Trump] ran for president, so we dropped the idea [of a Trump Tower Moscow].”153 However, Emin was also so candid with Forbes about both what those discussions entailed and whether they in fact survived Trump’s announcement of his presidential candidacy that he later tried to retract the portion of his interview referencing a 2013 letter of intent between his father and Trump. Pre-retraction, the younger Agalarov told Forbes that “we [Trump and the Crocus Group] had actually signed some nondisclosure documents at the time [in 2013] just to establish the relationship on a different level. . . . But if [Trump] hadn’t run for president, we would probably be in the construction phase today, because he’s a great person, very trusted on our side.”154 Echoing his father’s implication in 2017 that the Trump-Agalarov Trump Tower Moscow letter of intent was still active in 2015, Emin, when asked by Forbes, “Do you think there’s any possibility you might pick up those conversations [about Trump Tower Moscow] with Eric or Donald Jr.?,” responded, “Yeah, we are in contact with both.”155 The response suggested that Trump had instructed neither Donald Trump Jr. nor Eric Trump that they were in fact prohibited from doing any foreign deals while he was in office. Indeed, according to Emin, the Trump boys’ delay in responding to several post–June 2015 proposals by the Agalarovs—for instance, working with “a manufacturer of furniture in Turkey” and “building a building together [in Moscow]”—was only because, after their father’s 2016 election, Don Jr. and Eric “[hadn’t] realized who is handling what, how and when.”156
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On March 29, 2014, Yulya Alferova retweets Trump three times in succession, with all three tweets on the subject of the Agalarovs’ new business partner running for president. According to both Emin Agalarov and Donald Trump Jr., the Agalarovs and Trumps are still planning a Trump Tower Moscow at this point.
By Trump’s own public admission, as late as Election Day he didn’t believe he would win the presidency. He thought that as of November 9, 2016—the day after Election Day—he’d return to being a nonpolitician private citizen free to do big international business deals without hindrance.157 According to Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, a week before the election Trump told the former head of the Fox News Channel Roger Ailes that “losing [the election] . . . isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.”158 Wolff wrote that Trump appeared to his aides to be “horrified” when things started breaking his way on election night, almost certainly thinking that his grand plans for a Trump Tower Moscow would have to be put on hold.159 Former congressman, current MSNBC host, and longtime Trump friend—now Trump enemy—Joe Scarborough said in August 2017, after having been in contact with Trump for much of the 2016 campaign, “Donald Trump never thought he was going to win the presidency. This was all a money-making scam. . . . [He was going to] take the money and run. ‘Let me use the position I’m in right now and try to get that tower in Moscow.’ ”160
When Trump won on November 8, 2016, in addition to publicly expressing his surprise, he for weeks resisted any attempt to shut down his business dealings at home or abroad.161 To this day, he has not divested himself of his business interests, almost certainly aware that the commitments he made to Agalarov prior to the election can be restarted more readily if he takes no appreciable steps to distance himself from the business entity—the Trump Organization—that made those commitments.162
CHAPTER THREE
Kompromat
November 2013
Summary
WHEN DONALD TRUMP ARRIVES IN Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in November 2013, he checks into the presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton Moscow. That night he is allegedly surreptitiously recorded asking multiple women to urinate on the presidential suite bed President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama had slept in on their trip to Moscow. Multiple active-duty CIA officers responsible for the case file on this incident, speaking to the BBC’s Russia correspondent through an intermediary, say that the recording does indeed exist. BBC reporter Paul Wood reports that at least one allied European intelligence agency has the same information.1 These officers also tell the BBC that there is at least one other recording of Trump “of a sexual nature” from a different location (St. Petersburg) and a different time. Any such recording would be considered national security–endangering kompromat—potential blackmail material—if it is now in the possession of the Kremlin.
Numerous witnesses in contact with British media confirm individual elements of the Ritz-Carlton allegation, which was originally published by BuzzFeed in January 2017 as part of a thirty-five-page dossier of raw intelligence now known as the “Steele dossier.”
The Facts
DONALD TRUMP ARRIVES IN MOSCOW on November 8, 2013, for a full day of business meetings.2 A number of Russian businessmen attend the meetings; among them is Artem Klyushin, a Russian billionaire whose close friend Konstantin Rykov will post on social media the day after the 2016 election that he and Klyushin were part of a campaign to get Trump elected.3 Rykov runs Dosug, a website that functions as Moscow’s largest brothel.4
At one of Trump’s first meetings, a Russian attendee—possibly Emin Agalarov, possibly Artem Klyushin or a third person—tells Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, that if Trump wants, a group of prostitutes can be sent to his room at the Ritz-Carlton that night.5 According to Schiller’s testimony to Congress in November 2017, he declines the offer and tells Trump about it immediately; the two men laugh about it, Schiller testifies.6 That night Schiller, as he normally does, stands outside Trump’s door; after a few minutes, however, he goes to bed.7 Trump is aware—by his own subsequent admission at a January 2017 news conference—that his room is likely filled with clandestine recording equipment and that he must be “careful” about what he does there.8 Schiller tells Congress that he “could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night.”9
According to the dossier compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele—using Russian intelligence sources he developed during his time as head of the Russia desk at the British intelligence agency, as well as local Moscow sources and American sources alleged to be close to Trump—prostitutes were sent to Trump’s room on November 8, 2013, and the room was being recorded.10 The dossier cites for this intelligence “several of the staff [at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow],” as well as “Sources D and E.”11 The dossier sources allege that, to show disrespect to President Obama and his wife, Michelle, Trump asked a group of women to urinate on the bed in the presidential suite that the Obamas had slept in during a prior official visit to Russia.12
Over the course of the next year there will be reports of witnesses who saw a row in the Ritz-Carlton Moscow lobby between hotel staff and a group of women who wanted to go up to Trump’s room without signing in.13 Paul Wood of the BBC, in an article for the Spectator, will say he was told by an unnamed source that a hotel employee and an American tourist saw the row happen.14 In October 2017, an editor at the Guardian will contact this author to say that the Guardian has heard “there are witnesses to a confrontation in the hotel lobby, when security wanted the girls to sign in and DJT [Donald Trump] objected. . . . [O]ne [witness] is [a] former Trump Organization [employee].” The editor adds that the Guardian source is a trusted one but “two layers away. She talked to a top Republican who talked to the witness. Her understanding is that the witness had talked to the FBI and given an interview to a local paper that never printed it.”15
There is speculation, after the Steele dossier is published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, that Belarusian businessman Sergei Millian (born Siarhei Kukuts) is both Source D and Source E, a claim made unlikely by the dossier’s contention that Source E “confirmed” raw intelligence provided
by Source D as to the incident in Trump’s hotel room.16
Shortly after the dossier’s publication, Paul Wood reports that a retired spy told him in August 2016 that an eastern European intelligence agency had confirmed the existence of a tape of the Ritz-Carlton incident.17 “Later,” Wood writes, “I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file,” to determine whether the intelligence community credits the allegations. According to Wood, he received a response through that intermediary that there was “more than one tape” of the then president-elect, with “audio and video,” on “more than one date” and in “more than one place”—specifically, Moscow and St. Petersburg—and that the material in all instances was “of a sexual nature.”18
The day after BuzzFeed publishes the dossier, the Kremlin calls the dossier’s findings “a complete fabrication and utter nonsense.” Trump cites the Kremlin’s response nearly word for word, calling the dossier “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE,” and adds, “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA—NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”19 He then compares America to Nazi Germany and himself to a victim of Nazi oppression, writing on Twitter, “Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”20
Defending himself against the allegations, Trump claims that it would be impossible for him to watch a third party urinate on a bed because he is a germaphobe.21 Yahoo News reports in April 2018 that Trump told FBI director James Comey, at a January 27, 2017, dinner, that he never slept overnight in Moscow—a claim that is later found to be false.22 The Washington Post reports, in January 2017, Trump’s contention that he would never have acted inappropriately in his hotel room, writing, “[T]he president-elect professed an awareness that the hotel rooms he visits overseas may be bugged with tiny cameras.”23 At a press conference the day after the dossier is released, the president says, “When I leave our country. . . . I am extremely careful. I’m surrounded by bodyguards. I’m surrounded by people. And I always tell them . . . ‘Be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go, you’re gonna probably have cameras.’ ”24 He adds, “I would certainly put [Russia] in that category.”25 Addressing specifically the possibility of being caught on camera doing something compromising, Trump says, “I always tell [my bodyguards and entourage]. . . . ‘I hope you’re gonna be good anyway. . . . [But you] better be careful, or you’ll be watching yourself on nightly television.’ I tell this to people all the time.”26
Trump’s claims of cautious behavior in Moscow are challenged by a pre-dossier interview on Hungarian television in which a former Miss Hungary, Kata Sarka, says that Trump approached her shortly before the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and propositioned her for sex in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton.27 Another of Trump’s defenses against the allegations is that he would never sleep with a prostitute; Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate, says that the first time she slept with Trump he tried to pay her afterward.28
According to a January 2017 Daily Caller report, an unnamed former Trump adviser’s initial defense of Trump contended that it was Emin Agalarov who raised the matter of prostitutes and did not offer them so much as tell Schiller they would be sent; the same former adviser said that there were multiple “people” guarding Trump’s door all night.29 In his testimony to Congress, however, Schiller will say that it was a “Russian or Ukrainian” person, not Emin Agalarov, who made the offer, and that the only person assigned to Trump’s door that night was Schiller himself, who left the door unguarded for much of the night.30 Emin Agalarov himself denies the allegation that he arranged for prostitutes and claims that Trump could not have been with prostitutes at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on November 9, 2013, because at 7:00 a.m. that day he was filming part of a music video for Emin as a favor.31 However Trump himself says he sometimes sleeps as few as three hours a night.32
In January 2017, Stanislav Belkovsky, a Muscovite who is the director of the National Strategy Institute in Moscow, a sometime freelancer for publications such as the Guardian and the Moscow Times, and a host at independent Russian network TV Rain, tells the Daily Beast that “[p]rostitutes around [Moscow] say the ‘golden shower’ orgy story is true.”33 In July 2017, independent journalist and surveillance expert Andrei Soldatov, while accompanying CBS’s Stephen Colbert on a sweep of the presidential suite bedroom in which the Steele-reported recording was allegedly made, tells the Daily Beast that “Colbert and I look[ed] for surveillance cameras behind the large mirror [in the presidential suite] and to our astonishment we discovered an electric cable, which could not have any clear purpose, as the mirror had no electronic illumination.”34
According to the New York Times, “Russia has a long and well-documented record of using kompromat to discredit the Kremlin’s foes and to lean on its potential friends. For decades [at least sixty years following the end of World War II], hotels across the former Soviet Union visited by foreigners were equipped with bugging devices and cameras by the K.G.B.”35 Experts on Russian hospitality-industry tradecraft say that, historically, “ ‘interesting’ . . . foreign businessmen” are put in a “handful of rooms” in the hotel in which they are staying that are wired for sound and video.36
In March 2018, the former CIA director John Brennan tells MSNBC that the Kremlin “may have something on [Trump] personally”: “The Russians, I think, have had long experience with Mr. Trump, and may have things that they could expose.”37
In April 2018, former FBI director James Comey, one of the original recipients of the Steele dossier in 2016, tells CNN, “I don’t know whether the current President of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible.”38
When Vladimir Putin is asked in Helsinki, Finland, whether the Kremlin has a tape of Trump from his November 2013 stay at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow, he does not deny the existence of such a tape; instead, he says that he was unaware Trump was in Moscow at the time.39 Noting that there are too many “high-level, high-ranking” businessmen coming to Russia to try to collect compromising material on all of them, he adds that “when [Trump] was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow [in November 2013]. . . . Please disregard these issues and don’t think about this anymore again.”40
On August 10, 2018, Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer and an intelligence columnist for Time, tells a crowd at an event in Colorado that prior to the release of the Steele dossier in January 2017 he spoke to a former KGB officer who told him, “We have a tape of Donald Trump.”41 While, according to Baer, the Russian didn’t say when the tape was recorded or what it depicted, Baer concluded, after the Steele dossier was published, that whether the tape referenced by the ex-KGB agent was from 2013 or not, based on the dossier’s allegations and his own familiarity with Russian intelligence operations, “the Agalarovs are KGB [FSB] agents.”42
Annotated History
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Donald Trump arrives in Moscow on November 8, 2013, for a full day of business meetings. A number of Russian businessmen attend the meetings; among them is Artem Klyushin, a Russian billionaire whose close friend Konstantin Rykov will post on social media the day after the 2016 election that he and Klyushin were part of a campaign to get Trump elected. Rykov runs Dosug, a website that functions as Moscow’s largest brothel.
Konstantin Rykov is a member of Putin’s political party (previously serving in the Duma), is one of the Russian leader’s most trusted confidants, and is widely considered by journalists and Kremlinologists as a member of the “propagandist arm of the Putin government machine,” according to Washington Monthly.43 Public Radio International noted his expertise in click-bait messaging, viral communication, and digital technology and referred to him in May 2018 as “the man who taught the Kremlin how to win the internet.”44 He also, according to a 2016 Daily Dot article entitled “This Dark Net Brothel Makes Finding Sex as Easy
as Hailing an Uber,” founded Dosug, now the largest brothel in Moscow.45
Rykov created a pro-Trump website, Trump2016.ru, in 2015 and published a pro-Trump endorsement just a few weeks after Trump’s surprise announcement of his candidacy for president that June; pictures and text from Klyushin’s Twitter account suggest Klyushin attended a Trump rally in Iowa later that year.46 In a March 2016 Reuters article, Rykov, who is well known in Russia and among American journalists as a “pro-Kremlin blogger” and “Putin supporter,” is quoted as saying, “Trump is the first member of the American elite in twenty years who compliments Russia. Trump will smash America as we know it, we’ve got nothing to lose. Do we want the grandmother Hillary? No. Maybe it’s time to help the old brigand [Trump].”47