"The Kremlin had absolutely no contacts regarding the construction of this tower. I think I have shown these emails to you, you saw and read them. There was nothing except them. We could not know, who [in the United States] was in charge of the matter, whether it was Trump or someone else [from his team]. The Americans and the US president himself know this better", Peskov told reporters, asked whether the Kremlin had contacts with Trump’s team about the Trump Tower project in Moscow.
Cohen reportedly said that the talks had come to an end in January 2016, while the negotiations were allegedly underway at least in the middle of 2016, the height of the presidential campaign. On 19 January, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller said in a statement that BuzzFeed News' claims "were not accurate".
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The unusual situation is complicated by the fact that the US has imposed a series of sanctions on Russia due to alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election with Robert Mueller investigating those claims, as well as allegations of collusion between Trump's campaign team and Moscow.
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the election, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the defeat of Trump's campaign opponent as well as deflect public attention from actual instances of electoral fraud and corruption.