US President Donald Trump’s long-time confidant and former bodyguard has testified that he rejected a Russian offer to send five women to then private-citizen Trump’s hotel room during their 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.
Keith Schiller, while testifying before the House Intelligence Committee earlier this week said that he took the offer as a joke, CNN cited multiple sources with direct knowledge of the deposition as saying.
On their way up to Trump’s hotel room that night, Schiller told the billionaire businessman about the offer and Trump laughed it off, Schiller told the committee.
He testified that he stood outside Trump’s hotel room for a time and then went to bed.
The 2013 trip was at the epicentre of one of the most salacious claims in a research dossier financed by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign. The document alleged that Trump consorted with prostitutes during his time in Moscow — a claim the President vehemently denied, the Washington Post reported.
Schiller, who frequently accompanied Trump on trips, told congressional investigators that he saw no compromising, illicit or illegal behaviour by Trump while in Moscow.
The offer to send women to Trump’s room came after Schiller said he attended a meeting in Moscow with about 15 people to discuss details of the pageant.
Among those in attendance were Russian pop star Emin Agalarov and his father, Aras Agalarov, a business magnate with close ties to the government of President Vladimir Putin, the Times reported.
Schiller was also asked about a wide-range of issues, including meetings between Trump associates and Russians. He denied having knowledge of many of those interactions.
He also denied knowing about the deliberations around the firing of FBI Director James Comey, saying he was only called into deliver a letter with the news to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A White House lawyer familiar with the matter said that the White House “and fair-minded people are pleased that Schiller was able to debunk yet another of the false claims in the fantasy dossier funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign and prepared during a time its foreign author worked closely with paid Russian operatives”.
