US President Donald Trump (right) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/JORGE SILVA)
The Trump Organization discussed giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse in Trump Tower Moscow while in talks about the real estate deal -- while Donald Trump was running for president.
Based on discussions with U.S. law enforcement officials, BuzzFeed reported that Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen discussed the plan with a representative for Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
News of the proposal came after Cohen reached a guilty plea with special counsel Robert Mueller, the heart of which regards the scrapped Trump Tower Moscow deal and false statements he made to Congress about it.
In a statement to CNN's Dana Bash, the president's attorney Rudy Giuliani denied that Trump had any knowledge of the proposal.
"The story is a story," he said. "The President never heard of this and the concept never got anywhere beyond an unfunded letter of intent."
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