felix seder had been associated with the trump organization for years. carried a trump business card that described himself as senior adviser to donald trump even after trump said he wouldn t recognize him if he were in the room. by 2013 apparently felix seder was recognizable again because he was working with michael cohen to make the trump-moscow thing happen and trump was signing off on the letter of intent to move forward with it. michael cohen i think has to testify to house intel next week. he handed over document to house intel today. his strategy in so doing is to try to spin what he s handed over in the best possible way. it also appears to try to play down the importance of felix seder and his involvement in this project, especially seder s comments in the e-mails that have been handed over to congress now and to some reports in which felix seder brags that there s something about this real estate deal in moscow that in the end will result in donald
trump becoming president of the united states. quote, our boy can become president of the usa and we can engineer it. i will get all of putin s team to buy in on this. i will manage this process. felix seder wrote to in michael cohen. michael, arranged for ivanka to sit in vladimir putin s chair at the kremlin. i know how to play it. we will get this done. michael cohen s strategy in releasing these documents to the press involves him playing down whether or not felix seder really could have been sirius serious about that. over the course of my business dealings with fe lakes seder he has sometimes used colorful language and been prone to salesmanship. when the times today went to check out felix seder s both
the new york times reported more details of those e-mails today, and trump associate felix seder, who was born in russia, wrote a series of e-mails to mr. trump s lawyer in which he boasted about his ties to mr. putin and predicted that building a trump tower in moscow would highlight mr. trump s savvy negotiating skills and be a political boon to his candidacy. our boy can become president of the usa and he can engineer it, mr. seder wrote in an e-mail. i will get all of putin s team to buy in on this. i will manage this process. in another e-mail to michael cohn, felix seder wrote, i will get putin on this program, and we will get donald elected. felix seder was hired by donald trump to broker real estate deals. the times also reports felix seder helped arrange ivanka trump s trip to moscow and that he said, quote, i arranged for ivanka to sit in putin s private
they developed the trump soho hotel together. felix seder is a career criminal with organized crime ties and the president maintained a relationship with him for over a decade and routinely said in public, i don t know him well. i m distancing myself from him. now with these e-mails, you see the president is not distant from felix seder, and in fact felix seder is the point person on a deal the trump organization is trying to do in moscow. it raises this quid pro quo issue that i think is going to be central to the mueller investigation, going beyond just collusion in the election. it s were there favors sought from the kremlin in return for certain quid pro quos? and people ix seder kept an office in trump tower during some of this period where donald trump says, oh, i didn t see him very much. and steve harper, on this release of what is basically evidence in the case, could it be that some of the defense lawyers involved with some of
not just personal and political relationships. it was also financial dealings. by the way, lawrence, how many americans alive today do you think have sat in the chair of vladimir putin? that shows you how close donald trump was to a president who ordered an attack on our country. and ivanka trump got to do that thanks to the intersession of a career criminal, felix sater, an associate of donald trump s. can we can you stay with us, congressman? we need to squeeze in a quick break here, and we re going to come right back with congressman eric swalwell. we ll be right back.