Powerful Russian Partner Boasts Of Ongoing Access To Trump Family

[niyad]

Exclusive: Powerful Russian Partner Boasts Of Ongoing Access To Trump Family



“Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends,” Agalarov says.


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Emin Agalarov (L), Donald Trump and Aras Agalarov at the Miss Universe competition in Moscow in 2013. The Agalarovs paid an estimated $7 million in licensing fees to host the event. (Photo by Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

“I have nothing to do with Russia,” Donald Trump bellowed to thousands of frenzied supporters at a Tampa, Florida rally last October. The truth, it seems, is a bit more complicated. In an exclusive interview with FORBES, Emin Agalarov—a Russian pop singer, real estate mogul and son of one of the country’s richest people—described an ongoing relationship with the Trump family, including post-election contact with the president himself.
Among Agalarov’s most striking claims: that he and his billionaire developer father, Aras, had plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia that would now likely be under construction had Trump not run for office; that he has maintained contact with the Trump family since the election, and has exchanged messages with Donald Trump Jr. as recently as January; and that President Trump himself sent a handwritten note to the Agalarovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory. “Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends,” Agalarov says.

The Agalarovs’ ties to Trump stretch back roughly five years, when they expressed interest in bringing Trump’s Miss Universe pageant to Moscow. After a visit to the Miss USA competition in Las Vegas, at Trump’s invitation, they signed an agreement, eventually paying an estimated $7 million in licensing fees to host Miss Universe at one of their properties.


But the Agalarovs had their eyes set on a bigger target: a licensing partnership with the Trump Organization. “We thought that building a Trump Tower next to an Agalarov tower—having the two big names—could be a really cool project to execute,” Emin Agalarov recalls. He says that he and his father selected a parcel of land and signed a letter of intent with their counterparts in New York, but before negotiations could further develop Trump launched his campaign and the deal was sidelined. “He ran for president, so we dropped the idea,” Agalarov says. “But if he hadn’t run we would probably be in the construction phase today.”

. . . . .



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(L-R): Donald Trump, Aras Agalarov, Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo and Emin Agalarov at the 2013 Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)



But Agalarov is almost certainly used to additional political scrutiny. His ex-wife, with whom he split in 2015, is the daughter of Azerbaijan’s president. As it happens, Trump once had a project there, too, though his company cancelled the transaction in December 2016 after development stalled. Agalarov says he played no role in arranging that deal four years prior, when Trump signed on.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/03/20/russian-billionaire-family-trump-ties-ongoing/#e41b25d69b3a

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. Come on, it's not like he made him appear in any of his music vide--Oh.