PALM BEACH, Fla. _ A Moscow-born confederate of President Donald Trump in a Fort Lauderdale condo projects casts a large shadow in the redacted final report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III released Thursday.
Felix Sater's name is dropped 104 times in the report, which ties him to self-proclaimed Trump fixer Michael Cohen in putting together a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
As Sater and Cohen worked on the Trump Tower Moscow project, Sater mused in a Nov. 3, 2015 email about how the skyscraper could boost Trump's presidential prospects, according to the Mueller report.
"Sater emailed Cohen suggesting that the Trump Moscow project could be used to increase candidate Trump's chances at being elected, writing: "Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it."
Sater goes on to say: "I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this, I will manage this process. ... Putin gets on stage with Donald for a ribbon cutting for Trump Moscow, and Donald owns the republican nomination."
The Sater-Trump Fort Lauderdale project in 2005 was never completed and resulted in lawsuits, with some potential buyers suing Trump personally for damages. Sater ended up in a rent-free office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, brokering connections between the Trump family and Russian elites.
Sater was scheduled to speak in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees in March on the Moscow real estate deal but it was postponed.
In another Cohen email, Sater talks about how Putin and Trump would hit it off:
"Donald doesn't stare down, he negotiates and understands the economic issues and Putin only want to deal with a pragmatic leader, and a successful business man is a good candidate for someone who knows how to negotiate. Business, politics, whatever it all is the same for someone who knows how to deal."
The Sater portion of the report is just one of many incidents where there is a Russian tie to Trump.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in a news conference Thursday morning, repeatedly said there was no collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia. However, that didn't preclude Trump from using the fruits of Russia's labor.
This is borne out in the first reference to Florida on page 39 of the report, which describes the actions of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian entity that was ultimately indicted for election interference.
The report noted that the IRA focused intently on the 2016 election promoting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton Campaign, including a series of pro-Trump rallies in Florida in August 2016.
The Florida rallies drew the attention of the Trump campaign, which posted about the Miami rally on candidate Trump's Facebook account.
In November 2016, the Russians sent spearphishing emails to more than 120 accounts used by Florida elections officials. The emails contained malicious software. The FBI believes that the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, was able to gain access to a network of at least one Florida county government.
It has never been reported which county government was targeted.
Florida is mentioned 31 times in the Mueller report, not a big surprise since Trump's Mar-a-Lago is in Palm Beach. The mansion is mentioned eight times.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has a $1.5 million home in Palm Beach Gardens and 16 pages of the report are dedicated to him.
The investigation did not establish that Manafort coordinated with the Russian government's election interference efforts. The report, however, does detail Manafort's role with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort employee who the FBI determined had ties with Russian intelligence, according to the report.
Manafort has since acknowledged he was a "backdoor" means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine, according to the report. Trump told Mueller in a written response that he did not remember Manafort talking to him about positions that the Ukraine or Russia would want the U.S. to support.
Manafort was convicted of financial fraud for work he did years earlier in Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian political figures. A judge also found he lied to Mueller's office after pledging to cooperate.
Manafort will be allowed to keep his home in BallenIsles but will forfeit his New York homes, worth an estimated $22 million.
Another Florida character, flamboyant Trump confidant Roger Stone who lives in Fort Lauderdale, had a good portion about him redacted.
Stone, indicted on charges of lying to investigators, in the spring of 2016 met with a Ukrainian who offered to sell the Trump campaign financial documents that he claimed showed Hillary Clinton had laundered money through his companies, according to the report.
After being told that the alleged documents would show Clinton laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions, Stone refused to buy the information from Alexei Rasin, a Ukrainian involved in South Florida real estate, Mueller said.
"Stone refused the offer, stating that Trump would not pay for opposition research," Mueller wrote.
However, the Russian who introduced Stone and Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo to Rasin told investigators that he doubted the damaging documents existed.
Russian Henry Oknyansky, a Hallandale Beach resident who also goes by the name of Greenberg, said Rasin had tried to sell the information to others without success.
While Florida records show that Rasin had companies in Sunny Isles Beach and Naples, they have been inactive for years. Investigators confirmed Rasin has a valid Florida driver's license, but Mueller said they were unable to find him anywhere in the United States.
"The Office otherwise was unable to determine the content and origin of the information he purportedly offered to Stone," Mueller wrote. "Finally, the investigation did not identify evidence of a connection between the outreach or the meeting and Russian interference efforts."
Another Russian with Florida and Trump ties was oligarch Dimitry Rybolovlev. He bought a Palm Beach mansion from Trump in 2008 for $95 million, a sharp increase from the $41 million Trump had paid for the property just four years earlier.
Rybolovlev divided the property into three parcels, two of which he has sold for a combined $71 million. The purchase is one of several Trump business transactions that were reported to be under investigation by Mueller.
But Rybolovlev was never mentioned in the report.
On March 24, the president was wrapping up a weekend at Mar-a-Lago when Barr released his four-page summary of the report. Speaking to reporters on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport, and citing Barr's summary, Trump declared himself "totally exonerated."
Trump arrives at PBIA Thursday to spend the Easter holiday at Mar-a-Lago.
Seconds after Barr concluded his news conference, Trump pinned a Game of Thrones-esque tweet to the top of his account.
