During the first week of November, Donald Trump visits Moscow with Howard Lorber to look at available land and apply for trademarks. He wants to start building in Russia.
Other people involved in the trip include Epstein-partner Leon Black, Ron Bernstein, Theodore Liebman, Trump Organization’s Matthew Calamari, and Bennett LeBow — a business partner of both Howard Lorber and Ukrainian mafia boss Vadim Rabinovich.
In Moscow, Trump connects with Felix Sater, a Russian-American money launder and fraudster who recently fled to Russia to escape charges back home in the states. Sater’s father, Mikhail Sheferovsky, is a New York-based underboss for Semion Mogilevich. (Rabinovich, while not part of his organization, met with Mogilevich as recently as October ’95.)
Trump also meets a Russian artist named Zurab Tsereteli. That story will be told in another post on Trump File.
According to Trump, this trip leads to him working with “the local government, the mayor of Moscow and the mayor’s people,” but his Russia properties are never constructed.
Before he heads home, Trump’s associates throw a party in his honor — at a hotel owned by Semion Mogilevich.
Years later, Trump partners with Sater’s Bayrock Group on Trump SoHo, and Lorber becomes an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign. He is Donald Trump Jr.’s first call after the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
Note: We know the trip takes place in the first week of November thanks to a photo from the Associated Press dated November 5.
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Photo: AP/REX/Shutterstock via New York Mag