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James Comey's Memos sent to Congress showed that Trump twice told untrue to FBI Director that he never even spent a night in Russia during Miss Universe 2013 in Moscow
Monday, April 23, 2018
Donald Trump and Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo show off on the red carpet at the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. | Getty |
Miss Universe 2013 Gabriela Isler, from Venezuela, adjusts her crown after winning the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. (AP / Pavel Golovkin)
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VietPress USA (April 23, 2018): Above are some photos taken at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow that Donald Trump organized in Moscow, Russia on November 9, 2013.
The Politica Magazine quoted that "On June 18, 2013, Donald Trump had some exciting news: He would soon be whisking dozens of the world’s most beautiful women to Russia.
“The Miss Universe Pageant will be broadcast live from MOSCOW, RUSSIA on November 9th,” Trump tweeted that day, referring to the beauty pageant he owned at the time. “A big deal that will bring our countries together!”
And maybe not just the countries, Trump said: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant,” he tweeted later that day. “[I]f so, will he become my new best friend?”
Trump was there in Moscow, Trump spent overnight there in Russia; but why Trump denied and twice told untrue to FBI Director James Comey that Trump never even spent a night in Moscow during his trip to Russia for Miss Universe pageant 2013 in Moscow?
Read this news from Bloomberg Magazine on Yahoo News at:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/flight-records-illuminate-mystery-trumps-181417911.html
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Flight Records Unfold Mystery of Trump's Moscow Nights
Vernon Silver
MOSCOW, RUSSIA - NOVEMBER 09: Donald J Trump attends final of the competition Miss Universe 2013 in Crocus City Hall in Moscow on November 9, 2013. (Photo byAlexander Aleshkin/Epsilon/Getty Images) |
Yet the broad timeline of Trump’s stay, stretching from Friday, Nov. 8, 2013, through the following Sunday morning, has been widely reported . And it’s substantiated by social media posts that show he slept in Moscow the night before the Miss Universe contest.
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Now, flight records obtained by Bloomberg provide fresh details. Combined with existing accounts and Trump’s own social-media posts, they capture two days that, nearly five years later, loom large in the controversy engulfing the White House and at the heart of the Comey memos, which the Justice Department turned over last week to Congress.
Neither the White House nor Trump Organization immediately responded to requests for comment.
According to Comey’s accounts of his 2017 meetings with the president, Trump said the Moscow trip was so quick that his head never hit a pillow -- even for one night. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017.
The first denial came over dinner at the White House in late January 2017. “He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel," and then left for the event, Comey wrote. “Afterwards, he returned only to get his things because they departed for New York by plane that same night."
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On the second occasion in February 2017, Trump “explained, as he did at our dinner, that he hadn’t stayed overnight in Russia during the Miss Universe trip," Comey wrote.
A reconstruction of events shows the future U.S. president’s journey to Moscow began in North Carolina, where he attended a birthday tribute to evangelist Billy Graham on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013. While flight records show Trump’s own Cessna jet headed back to New York that night from Asheville, North Carolina, Trump himself apparently wasn’t aboard.
Instead, Trump flew to Moscow on a Bombardier Global 5000 private jet owned by Phil Ruffin, his partner in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Las Vegas, the New York Times reported in January 2017. Trump’s use of Ruffin’s jet is also reported in the newly published book, “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.
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The jet -- tail number N443PR -- had flown from Las Vegas to Asheville on Nov. 6, according to the flight records that Bloomberg purchased from FlightAware, an aviation data company. The flight records don’t say who was aboard the jet, which took off from Asheville at 9:15 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 7, bound for Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport.
At the Ritz
The Bombardier jet landed in Moscow on Friday, Nov. 8, at a time unspecified in the records. From Vnukovo airport, it’s less than an hour’s drive to the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where Trump stayed, according to the pageant’s host, developer Aras Agalarov.
Trump surfaced online later that day in a Facebook post by the restaurant Nobu Moscow. That night he attended a birthday party for Agalarov.
The next day, Saturday, Nov. 9, Facebook posts showed Trump at the Ritz during the day, and in the afternoon he tweeted that he’d gotten a tour of Moscow. That evening, he attended the Miss Universe pageant, followed by an after-party whose scheduled start time was 1 a.m. -- by that time, Sunday, Nov. 10.
At this point, the flight records support a narrow slice of what Trump told Comey: On the night of the pageant itself, the plane Trump was said to be using didn’t fully overnight in Russia. Ruffin’s Bombardier took off from Vnukovo airport at 3:58 a.m. Moscow time, the records show.
When the jet touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport, just outside New York City, it was still Sunday morning -- 4:11 a.m. local time. That evening, Trump tweeted about his return, “I just got back from Russia-learned lots & lots. Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place!"
Corrects 3rd and 11th paragraphs to reflect that flight data firm erroneously provided time of landing in Moscow that was same as departure from North Carolina.
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