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This thing where NPR is accused of falsely accusing Donald Trump Jr. of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee—

This NPR story appears to be wrong. It notes that Trump Jr. told a Senate committee that a deal in Moscow died of "deal fatigue" by 2014.

But that was a deal with the Agalarovs. He was also asked if a deal was in the works in 2015/2016 and said yes.https://t.co/B8SuolTfyK pic.twitter.com/w34SamzXJF

— Philip Bump (@pbump) November 30, 2018

—is getting things wrong in its own right, in the sense that when we're asked to distinguish between two distinct Trump Tower Moscow deals, one involving the high-class Junior and the Agalarov family, which died in 2014 of "deal fatigue", and the other involving the roughnecks Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, which was ongoing in 2016 when Trump was lying about it in every conceivable venue, that's a really false picture.


There was always just one Trump Tower Moscow effort, because it was something Donald always wanted done. When it eventually got serious, in 2006, Ivanka and Junior made the trip to Moscow with Sater acting as their local fixer, and when it went on during the 2016 presidential campaign under Sater's and Cohen's wings, it was meant to be situated on the same land as in 2013, next to the Agalarovs' Crocus Mall,

Kremlin-linked developer Aras Agalarov told Russian media in September 2015 that his son Emin had been in contact with Donald Trump during the primary campaign. Komsomolskaya Pravda reports that Aras Agalarov said (via Google Translate):

“[Trump] is busy with the presidential election campaign. And Emin had seen him recently — there, in America.”

When asked this by [Komsomol'skaya Pravda], “Tell us and now do you have no contacts with Trump?” Agalarov replied, “Principally we have contacts.”

So when Junior tells the Senate committee that there was a particular deal in which he and Emin Agalarov were involved that died in 2014, and at a different moment of the hearing acknowledges a different deal he knew nothing about managed by Cohen and Sater, he really is absolutely lying.