Dispatch April 26, 2018

The Moscow Miss Universe Pageant Timeline

Last Thursday night, just hours after they were given to Congress in response to repeated demands from GOP committee leadership, former FBI Director James Comey’s memos regarding his conversations with President Donald Trump were leaked to the press. One notable revelation was that Trump, unprompted, not only denied having consorted with prostitutes during his trip to Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant but even denied spending the night in the city at all. (Trump, true to form, has denied ever making the claim.)

As Comey told CNN, “It’s always significant when someone lies, especially about something you didn’t ask about.” That’s especially true when the lie is this easy to debunk. In addition to flight records and accounts from other individuals present, social-media records from the weekend show that Trump stayed in Moscow overnight. The timeline below, compiled by the Moscow Project for internal reference in May 2017, clearly documents that Trump arrived in the city on Friday, November 8, and did not land back in the United States until Sunday, November 10 (all times EDT):

Friday, November 8

    • 10:44 a.m.: The Azerbaijani-Russian singer and real-estate executive Emin Agalarov tweets a picture of himself and Trump at Crocus City Hall, welcoming Trump to Moscow

Saturday, November 9

    • 4:23 a.m.: Agalarov tweets a picture of Trump in the board room of the Moscow Ritz-Carlton, where Trump filmed a cameo for the music video for Agalarov’s song “In Another Life.”

Shooting an amazing video with @realdonaldtrump @missuniversemsc #missuniverse

A post shared by eminofficial (@eminofficial) on

    • 4:44 a.m.: Yulya Alferova, a business associate of the Agalarovs in charge of social media for the pageant, tweets a picture of the MSNBC journalist and Miss Universe Pageant co-host Thomas Roberts recording an interview with Trump at Crocus Hall’s restaurant.

    • 5:08 a.m.: The Russian pop singer Philip Karkarov posts a picture of himself with Trump on Instagram, which is cross-posted to Twitter.

    • 6:04 a.m.: Karkarov tweets now-broken link to Instagram: “unexpected end of the evening after the DR A. Agalarovai K.Sobchak) “ @ OYUA_ALEXSEEVA : Here is gone on a spree @ fkirkorov and @anilorak”

    • 8:47 a.m.: Trump tweets that he is in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant.

    • 9:21 a.m.: Trump tweets that he was just “given a great tour of Moscow.”

    • 12:10 p.m.: Alferova tweets a picture of Trump from red carpet at Crocus Hall.

    • 4:03 p.m.: Klyushin tweets a picture of Trump from the post-pageant red carpet.

    • 4:05 p.m.: The Miami Herald reporter Joey Flechas tweets that Trump returned call from Moscow

Sunday, November 10

    • 8:26 a.m.: Alferova tweets a picture with Trump at a “business lunch.”

    • 9:44 p.m.: Trump tweets that he’s back in U.S.

November 11

    • 11:39 a.m.: Trump tweets to Aras Agalarov

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