Athos_131 · 8341
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer, is set to testify Friday before the House Intelligence Committee about his experience working on a proposed Trump tower project in Moscow during the 2016 election, according to Sater and other people familiar with his scheduled appearance.The closed-door interview is part of an inquiry by the House panel into President Trump’s long-standing interest in expanding his brand to Moscow, a topic that Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, has said he intends to explore further.“This was a project that the president was pursuing during the presidential campaign” that “may have been the most lucrative deal of his life,” Schiff said Wednesday of Trump’s efforts to develop a project in Russia, which never advanced beyond the early stages.During an appearance at the National Press Club, Schiff said the Trump Organization was effectively seeking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for a Moscow tower in 2016 “while the candidate, Donald Trump, was out on the campaign trail extolling the merits of Vladimir Putin.”A spokesman for Schiff did not comment on Sater’s planned testimony but said the committee is continuing its investigation into the Moscow project and “will be proceeding with multiple staff-level interviews as part of that investigation during the coming weeks.”Sater, a U.S. citizen, was originally set to testify before the panel in March, but his appearance was postponed. He worked on two efforts to develop a Trump tower in Moscow, and he escorted Trump’s children Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. during a 2006 visit to the Russian capital.Most recently, Sater worked closely with Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen on a proposed Moscow development that began in the fall of 2015.At the time, Cohen and Sater discussed using the project to help not only Trump’s bottom line, but also his electoral efforts.“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote to Cohen in a 2015 email. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”Last year, Cohen admitted he lied to Congress about the project. He said he falsely claimed that efforts to build a Trump-branded tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, when in fact discussions continued through June of that year — as Trump was securing the GOP presidential nomination.Cohen is serving a three-year jail sentence after also pleading guilty to tax and campaign finance crimes.Along with Sater, the House Intelligence Committee is seeking the testimony of another businessman who was part of discussions about a Trump tower in Russia: Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a native of Georgia who is now a U.S. citizen and briefly expressed interest in a Trump Moscow development during a 2015 email exchange with Cohen.In an interview, Rtskhiladze said the details of his testimony were still being negotiated between his lawyer and committee staff.
An all-star, live-streamed staged reading of the Mueller Report just might knock down the last excuse standing between you and the 448 doorstop.Beginning tonight at 9 pm ET (6 pm PT), stars including Zachary Quinto, Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Jason Alexander, among many others and with additional participation by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mark Hamill, will launch what is officially titled The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts. The reading is adapted from the report by Robert Schenkkan, whose play The Kentucky Cycle won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992.The event is executive produced by Susan Disney Lord, Abigail Disney and Timothy Disney and presented by LawWorks.The live cast, as it stands now, includes, Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Frederick Weller, Ben McKenzie, Michael Shannon, Noah Emmerich, Justin Long, Jason Alexander, Gina Gershon, Wilson Cruz, Joel Grey, Alyssa Milano, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Piper Perabo, Zachary Quinto and Aidan Quinn, with additional participation by Sigourney Weaver, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mark Hamill.Law Works is an organization that engages bipartisan voices and educates the public on the Mueller investigation and the importance of the rule of law, so that Congress and the American people can ensure no one is above the law. Law Works promotes the work of Congressional Oversight and brings experts to the public debate in a variety of ways to elevate the public dialogue above today’s shouting match.Law Works, the presenter, is an organization with the stated mission of engaging bipartisan voices and educating the public on the Mueller investigation and the importance of the rule of law, so that Congress and the American people can ensure no one is above the law.The live-stream of The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts begins at 9 pm ET/6PT and can be viewed here.
Robert Mueller will testify before Congress on July 17 after House Democrats issued a subpoena for his appearance, a move that paves the way for a reluctant special counsel to answer questions publicly for the first time about his 22-month investigation into President Donald Trump.The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees announced Tuesday that Mueller had agreed to testify after they issued subpoenas for his testimony, and Mueller would appear in public before the two panels next month.Americans have demanded to hear directly from the Special Counsel so they can understand what he and his team examined, uncovered, and determined about Russia's attack on our democracy, the Trump campaign's acceptance and use of that help, and President Trump and his associates' obstruction of the investigation into that attack," House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said in a joint statement.The subpoenas to Mueller come after weeks of negotiations between Democrats, the special counsel's team and the Justice Department. Democrats are proceeding with subpoenas to Mueller after he spoke publicly last month and said he did not wish to testify publicly about the investigation, and that his testimony would not go beyond what was written in the special counsel's 448-page report.In a letter to Mueller, the Democratic chairmen said that they understood Mueller's concerns about ongoing investigations referred by the special counsel, but still felt it was necessary for him to testify."We will work with you to address legitimate concerns about preserving the integrity of your work, but we expect that you will appear before our Committees as scheduled," Nadler and Schiff wrote.