Donald Trump Jr. claimed to know nothing about the Trump Tower Moscow project in an astonishing interview with FOX News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday night in a statement which Axios notes “contradicts multiple facts that have already been made public about the Moscow project — mentioned publicly in a 2013 Trump tweet — which was formalized in a letter of intent signed by Trump in October 2015 with a team of developers first revealed in 2017.”
Said Trump Jr., placing all the onus for the Trump Tower Moscow project on former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen: “…the reality is this wasn’t a deal — we don’t know the developer. We don’t know the site. We don’t know anything about it. Ultimately, it was Michael Cohen essentially trying to get a deal done. You know, he was there for a long time. He wasn’t exactly a deal guy. He didn’t bring too many to the table. So, I don’t think anyone took it all that seriously.”
Axios added: ‘Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, attempted to walk back comments he made over the weekend that Trump worked on the Moscow project all the way up to Election Day, which Axios’ Jim VandeHei notes could be a strategy to confirm troubling facts so that they won’t seem as jarring when revealed in full by special counsel Robert Mueller or others.’
Of the media’s (and in reaction to Buzzfeed’s) continued scrutiny of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, Donald Jr. added: “They have shot themselves in the foot time and time again, because they so desperately want this to be the truth, as opposed to saying, ‘You know what? Trump’s done a darn good job as president.’ If you look at any economic metric today, Laura, we are substantially better off than we were two short years ago before he took office because he’s doing a great job. Imagine what he could do without the noise––every day there’s a new reason for impeachment. Let him do his job. That’s the job he was elected to do. And the media right now is really trying to subvert this democracy. They’ve done more to hurt the credibility of this country’s institution as a democracy than anything in history.”
