The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy. Greg Miller

Читать онлайн.
Название The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy
Автор произведения Greg Miller
Жанр
Серия
Издательство
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008325763



Скачать книгу

Trump began planning to take possession of a more prestigious piece of real estate: the White House.

      Trump made only passing reference to Russia in his 2015 announcement speech, though months later he was secretly pursuing yet another potential deal to build “Trump Tower Moscow.” The project was spearheaded by Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and a Russian-born associate, Felix Sater, who had an office in Trump Tower and carried Trump-branded business cards. (Sater had spent time in prison for stabbing a man and had separately been convicted of fraud. Aiming to reduce his sentence, he became an FBI informant.)

      “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote to Cohen in an email touting the project.

      ALMOST EXACTLY A YEAR LATER, TRUMP TOWER WAS THE SETTING for a far smaller gathering kept secret from the public.

      On June 6, 2016, music promoter Rob Goldstone circled back to Trump Jr. by email, asking when he might be free to speak with Emin Agalarov, whose father had helped bankroll the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, “about this Hillary info.” Trump Jr. then engaged in a flurry of messages and calls with both Goldstone and Agalarov. Phone records obtained by congressional investigators show two calls between Trump Jr. and Agalarov, one at 4:04 P.M. and another at 4:38 P.M., though it was unclear whether they spoke or exchanged voice mails.11

      Within that thirty-four-minute time frame, Trump Jr. made or received another call, though with whom remains a mystery. (Phone records showed the number as “blocked.”) Democrats in Congress would wonder whether Trump Jr. had conferred with his father—whose Trump Tower residence had a blocked number—over how to proceed. In testimony before congressional committees, Trump Jr. professed not to remember whom he’d spoken with.

      Trump Jr. and Agalarov—whose developer father was sometimes referred to as the “Trump of Russia”—connected by phone again on June 7. That afternoon, Trump Jr. spoke with both Manafort and his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, another scion of a wealthy real estate family who had married into the Trump clan and become part of the candidate’s inner circle. Trump Jr. wanted Manafort and Kushner to attend the meeting. He then emailed Goldstone to set a time and place: “How about three at our offices?”

      In later testimony, Trump Jr. would claim that he did not know the names or backgrounds of those being ushered into a suite of offices on the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower on June 9. The event was marked on his calendar only as “Meeting: Don Jr./Jared Kushner.” Trump Jr. said Kushner and Manafort knew even less about the guests or their purpose, and had been asked merely to “drop in.” But the fact that Trump Jr. coordinated schedules with them and insisted on their attendance suggests that he saw the meeting as important enough to convene his father’s top aides.

      The meeting occurred as planned on June 9, though the time was bumped to four P.M. Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort found themselves sitting across a large conference table from Goldstone and four Russian-speaking associates. Among them was a lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, with ties to senior officials in the Kremlin; Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist; Ike Kaveladze, a U.S.-based executive in the Agalarov company; and an interpreter.12

      Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Kremlin are unquestioned if hard to accurately assess. She had earned a law degree in Moscow, worked in the office of a Russian prosecutor, and represented a roster of influential oligarchs—including a railway magnate who faced money-laundering charges in New York. “I am a lawyer and I am an informant,” she would later say in a television interview.13

      But Veselnitskaya was best known in the United States for her campaign to overturn a set of banking and travel restrictions imposed on senior Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses. The sanctions were imposed as part of a congressional act named for a Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009. Magnitsky was incarcerated by the Russian government while working for a U.S.-born businessman, William Browder, who claimed that he had been cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars in an elaborate Russian tax fraud.

      After Magnitsky’s death, Browder led a years-long crusade that culminated in the 2012 sanctions. Veselnitskaya became the point person in a Kremlin-orchestrated counter-campaign that involved lobbying members of Congress and orchestrating efforts to damage the reputations of Browder and Magnitsky. (Putin also retaliated by banning American adoptions of Russian children, a move that underscored how few levers are available to Moscow in sanctions showdowns.)

      “I believe you have some information for us,” Trump Jr. said, getting straight to the point.14

      Veselnitskaya launched into a meandering discussion about “individuals connected to Russia supporting or funding Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” Trump Jr. testified later. “It was quite difficult for me to understand what she was saying or why.” It eventually became clear that she was referring to a trio of male heirs to the Ziff Davis publishing empire and one of their companies, a firm that had invested with Browder in Russia and come under investigation by Russian authorities.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAu4AAASICAIAAADDAt3gAAAHX2lDQ1BJQ0MgcHJvZmlsZQAAeNqV lVlUkwcexf/fkpWQQAgQkOWDsBtIQGQVCoRV9lXAlSQfEAkkJmGrYumoiOICVixVEBWkjiuIUByX SkUr4liBCrjgBlqlWBVH1KmWeeDMsS+dc+Y+/c4957883QtA5wWHhoShQQD5BTpNUkQIkZ6RSdCG AQMUmEAD5yyZVg1/LQRgeggQAIBBV2mURFKf73nwWHPYNC+/rjWRxc2H/y2GTK3RAVB7AKBXTmpl ALRqAFhXrFPrAOAlAPA0KUkSAAQHoKzP+RNL/8Sa9IxMAGolAPByZrkeAHjSWW4FAF56RiYxe/bT z7JCTdGsh54FACYYgzW4gCcEQhQkw1LIBQ2UwUaogXpogVY4A5fgBtyGcXgB7xEMYSN8RIC4It5I CBKDLEKykDykCClHNiO1SCNyGDmFnEd6kUFkFHmKTCEfURpqiFqgDqgY9UfD0AQ0EyVRNboarUBr 0Hr0ENqOfo/2ocPoGPoC/YDRMWPMFhNhC7AoLA2TYxrsC2wrtgc7jHVhl7Gb2Dj2GkdxQ9wGF+NB eAK+Alfj5XgNvh8/iV/Ef8Yf428pdIo5RUgJpCRQZJRCSiVlD+U4pZtyk/KU8oFqQLWj+lBjqVnU ImoVdR+1g9pHfUCdprFoApovLZ6WTSuj7aQdpV2k3aG9puvRBXR/ego9n15Bb6R30Qfokwwqg2D4 MVIZKsZmxkFGN+Mu4x2TxxQzY5kKZgWziXmBeY/5u56Znrdeqp5Ob4dem94NvZcsDkvEimepWNtZ rax+1pS+kf58/TT9Ev3d+uf077NRtj07iq1kV7NPsUfYHzk2nHBOHqeG08m5a4AaOBnEGxQZNBj0 GEwaGhn6G8oNtxh2GN7j0rju3Ezueu5x7i0j3EhklGm0wajNaJTH4HnxZLxq3jnehDHfONxYZ9xk PGCCmIhNVphUm1wweWlqY5pkus60w/QJ34wfzS/jt/LHzEzNFpqtNWs3+8XcwjzRvML8rPnUHKc5 y+fUzrlmgVv4W2gtjliMW1papllut+y1wqwCrIqtTlo9t3a2llvvsx4lzIg04iui34ZjE2tTZXPV lmEbaVtpe0VAF0QJNgn67Fh2cXbVdgP2xvbp9nvs7zsIHHIcjjq8cvRyXOP4gxPdKc6p1umus52z 0vmU8weXMJdtLiNzbecq53YKEWGMsE445ip2XePa62biJnNrc5sRxYkaRJNif3GV+K670L3M/boH 4aHx6JlnOm/lvHOehp6k5+n57Pmy+V1ebC+51xlvrrfC+4IP32eVT6+vre8a3yE/sd9mv8f+Qf71 /u8WpCxoC2AH5AX0BjoGVgQ+/iz0s+YgPEgedCnYIbgyeCIkJuSEhCsplNwKDQg9EEYLyw8bCPcJ b4ygRuRH3IwMiGyJ4kSVRD1aGLOwM9omekv0uxh5TH9sQOyROH5cRdybeHn8YIIkoT1RkLgziZpU nDSRvCT5p5SQlM5Ul9TGNF7a5rSZRUWLJtPl6XcykjP6MkMzzy/2Xty2RLjk26W2S/cuM1/29XLe 8poVnBXbslhZW6R60ioZS7ZVzpZXk1yyNpufXZ9D5DTnOueeUHgqzqwMXnklLyFvRJmlfJavzf9Y sFHFVTWondUdq4JXXdcs0UxoS3Q03a5Ch8LOooiikWJF8YeSbaU2pR2fR34+ulqzhramoWxe2dW1 WWvff1FT7lJ+8cslX07/rWadcN2P62UbYENDhV/FyMbiSuPKjk2pm95s3lXlXXVry+qtVlu7t5Hb GduPVydXv69p3BG+4/lXtTsDdj6p3b7Ld9fY11vrfOvGv6nZHbB7Yk9dfXj9m4bmvSmNeGPHvpz9 /P19B8qa3JseN39zMK4Fazn9rfqQ46F7f991OP4I/Uj30dXHvI69On7shKLVoXWsbf/J5e1W7aOn GjqWdVp1PvjuQBd52un0r/9oPaM763t25tzl81u+T7lgcWG8+9gPxReDe1g9w5eaLqt+XHCFcWW4 t+VqYV/YNeNrT/753fVNPy2+4daP9g8NHB4s/zn1pnAIG7o9fHKk6pb8duAd/p3Xd6+PHr638b78 QchD4uHMo3tj58cbH5c/kf4S+tTxGfPZbxODv3ZN7n2+/re8F8kv/V/ZTelPvX398F/X3nRNN7+t ebf2vfLfi39f+MHvo8sfc2b0Z2Y+5XJLCUDiHwAAnzzXnQC7CQDDpZ88214Ao0cA3Td0ZIkOAECi UpdqFDm5OsJJ4kx4iMXehLSUkKiUKg2RrFIW6hSqAq2QCFYqiSRFTq5OSySRWlJTRMrdiBiFjCzQ koSc1GUplFpCllVASEkiW1VYICdUBX5Erk6