Felix Sater was reportedly named in a lawsuit alleging in part that he intended to support financing a deal for Trump Tower Moscow with stolen funds. | Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New Yorker Congress House Intel postpones interview with Felix Sater after Mueller findings

The House Intelligence Committee postponed its public interview with Felix Sater, the chief negotiator for the Trump Tower Moscow project, a spokesman for the panel said, citing lingering questions from Attorney General Bill Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.

“In light of the cursory letter from the Attorney General, and our need to understand Special Counsel Mueller’s areas of inquiry and evidence his office uncovered, we are working in parallel with other committees to bring in senior officials from the DOJ, FBI and SCO to ensure that our committee is fully and currently informed about the SCO’s investigation, including all counterintelligence information,” the spokesman said. “With the focus on those efforts this week, we are postponing Mr. Sater’s open interview.”


The postponement comes a day after Barr wrote a four-page letter to Congress saying Mueller concluded that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, a gut punch to House Democrats who only recently relaunched their own Russia probe. Democrats have demanded to see the full Mueller report.

The Intelligence Committee has made the Trump Tower Moscow project a focus of its investigation, which is examining the extent to which President Donald Trump could be compromised by foreign actors. Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen lied to congressional investigators in 2017 about the timing of the negotiations surrounding the real estate project in Russia’s capital.

“I personally would like to hear a counterintelligence briefing or information from the Mueller folks about what they discovered,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Intelligence panel, said in an interview, noting that Sater’s appearance is a crucial part of the committee’s probe.

The postponement also comes as Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is under fire from Republicans and Trump allies, many of whom have called on the California Democrat to step down as chairman of the panel.

Sater was named in a lawsuit earlier in the day, according to news reports, alleging in part that he intended to support financing a deal for Trump Tower Moscow with stolen funds.