Ivanka Trump Facilitated Contact Between Michael Cohen And a Russian Offering to Facilitate a Trump-Putin Meeting

Special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigators tasked with probing the 2016 presidential election have questioned witnesses about contact between Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and a Russian contact offering to “expedite a Trump tower in Moscow,” BuzzFeed News reports.

According to BuzzFeed, Ivanka Trump “connected her father’s personal lawyer,” Michael Cohen, with Russian athlete Dmitry Klokov, “who offered to introduce Donald Trump to [Vladimir] Putin to facilitate a 100-story Trump tower in Moscow.” Cohen is under investigation in the Southern District of New York for bank fraud, among other alleged crimes.

The contact occurred as Trump was campaigning to be president, BuzzFeed reports. Ivanka Trump, then an executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization, appears to have facilitated a conversation between Cohen and Klokov in November 2015.

“Cohen had at least one phone conversation with the weightlifter,” sources told BuzzFeed News, and engaged in subsequent emails the the Trump lawyer.

Asked by BuzzFeed about his contacts with Cohen, Klokov denied emailing him. “I don’t understand why you ask me about this,” Klokov told BuzzFeed. “I’m weightlifter, not a political.”

A spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump’s attorney said the first daughter’s involvement with Trump tower in Moscow was minimal, claiming she did not know about the project “until after a nonbinding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, and, even internally, was only minimally involved.”

“Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not) the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards,” the spokeswoman added.

According to BuzzFeed, Mueller appears to be investigating whether or not that’s true.

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