Reports: Trump Organization considered Moscow building during campaign

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump's company attempted to land a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the then-presidential candidate's campaign in 2015 and 2016, unnamed sources familiar with the proposal said.

Sources told The New York Times a Russian-born real estate associate of Trump's, Felix Sater, promised to develop the deal, which would lead to Trump winning the presidential election. The Washington Post confirmed the news and reported that Sater promised he could get Russian President Vladimir Putin to say "great things" about Trump.

"Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it," Sater wrote in an email to Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer. "I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process."

As part of the deal, Sater told the Trump Organization he could get financing for the project with VTB Bank, a Russian bank sanctioned by the United States for its involvement with Moscow's attempts to seize Crimea.

Sater suggested Trump should travel to Moscow to push for the building, but neither the trip, nor the project came to fruition. The Trump Organization abandoned plans for the Moscow Trump Tower in January 2016.

The interest in the deal, though, could be of interest to congressional committees and a Department of Justice special counsel investigating Russia's alleged attempts to meddle in the U.S. presidential election and any involved Trump's campaign might have had in that process.