What Trump Said About His 2013 Moscow Trip and What Actually Happened May Not Be the Same

President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference with leaders of Baltic states in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 3, 2018. Trump is pointing to a 50 percent job approval rating that may not fully comport with reality. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Tell the truth, and you don’t need a good memory.

Someone should put that on a needlepoint throw pillow for Donald Trump, given that he and truth seem to be operating in different social circles.

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According to Bloomberg, some inconsistencies have been found between what Trump has said about his 2013 visit to Russia, and what flight records reveal.

Regarding that trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, the memos of former FBI Director James Comey show that the president twice mentioned that the reports from the now-infamous Russia dossier could not be true, since he didn’t even stay the night.

He lied.

Social media posts, as well as flight records just don’t match what he felt so important to stress to Comey.

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.”

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.

According to records, on November 7, 2013 Trump boarded a Bombardier Global 5000 private jet owned by Phil Ruffin, his partner in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Las Vegas, leaving from Asheville, North Carolina, and arrived in Moscow on Friday, November 8, 2013. From there, it was less than an hour drive to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, according to Aras Agalarov, a developer who hosted the pageant.

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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.

One thing he mentioned to Comey that was almost/sorta/kinda true, the Bombardier he had traveled to Moscow aboard didn’t stay for the full night on November 10. It took off in the early Moscow hours, at about 3:38am, Moscow time.

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!”

Did he forget?

Even at his advanced age and with his apparent intellectual shortfall, would he not remember a three-day stay in Moscow barely over four years ago?

He should, so in that instance, why lie, unprompted?

It’s just what he does.

 

 

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