When it comes to President Donald Trump's trip to Moscow in 2013, there are key details that still remain a mystery.
But flight records obtained by Bloomberg News via an aviation data company have helped put pieces of the puzzle into place.
Trump's trip to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow is notable because it's the center of the most salacious allegations that surfaced in the dossier compiled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele. It was alleged in the dossier that Trump had hired Russian hookers to urinate on the bed in which former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama once slept.
The president gave an alibi to former FBI Director James Comey on two separate occasions, according to memos written by Comey during his time at the law enforcement agency.
Trump alleged he never stayed in Moscow overnight, but as it turns out, he stayed in the city the night prior to the Miss Universe contest.
"He [Trump] said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel," Comey wrote after a January 2017 dinner conversation he had with the president. Trump said he then left for the event.
"Afterwards, he returned only to get his things because they departed for New York by plane that same night," Comey's memo said.
In a second conversation the following month, Comey wrote that Trump "explained, as he did at our dinner, that he hadn’t stayed overnight in Russia during the Miss Universe trip."
But the timeline of the trip actually starts on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013.
Bloomberg elaborated:
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 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.
The time at which the Bombardier jet landed in Moscow was not specified 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," Bloomberg reported.
A post on Facebook later that Friday placed him outside the restaurant Nobu Moscow, where he was pictured with Emin Agalarov. Facebook posts on Saturday showed Trump at the Ritz-Carlton, "and in the afternoon he tweeted that he’d gotten a tour of Moscow," according to Bloomberg.
Trump attended the pageant that Saturday and also attended an after-party into the early morning hours on Sunday, where American rock band "Panic! at the Disco" played. The Bombardier Trump was said to be on departed from Moscow at 3:58 a.m. local time.
That partially corroborates what Trump told Comey, which was that he didn't stay overnight in Russia on the night of the pageant.
But what is clear is that Trump stayed in Moscow on Friday night and left in the early hours of Sunday morning. Trump has adamantly denied the allegations inside the dossier, and the crux of his alibi has always been that, according to him, he never stayed in Moscow overnight. While none of that should make anyone jump to the conclusion that there is definitive truth to the salacious claims, the new information does raise questions about the credibility of his alibi.
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