Trump associate gave US government Osama bin Laden’s phone number, judge says

Trump business associate Felix Sater, known for his role in orchestrating the Trump Tower Moscow talks during the 2016 campaign, helped federal officials find Osama bin Laden by providing his phone number, a federal judge said Thursday.

“He cooperated,” Judge I. Leo Glasser said of Sater during a court hearing in the Eastern District of New York, according to Politico. 

The hearing came as part of a lawsuit by First Look Media to unseal materials pertaining to Sater’s cooperation with the government on a range of national security issues, Politico noted.{mosads}

“And you know what he did over the 10, 11 years, because you told me that you know,” Glasser continued. “He provided the telephone number of Osama bin Laden. He has done an awful lot of very interesting and dangerous things.”

Glasser characterized Sater’s actions as an FBI informant as “very interesting and dangerous,” the news outlet reported. 

Sater had previously told lawmakers in a written statement that he “provided crucial intelligence information” on bin Laden and al Qaeda “before and after the 9/11 attacks.” He also told BuzzFeed News that he collected five satellite phone numbers for bin Laden before 9/11. 

Sater came into the spotlight after it was revealed in 2017 that he had emailed President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen in 2015, arguing that a Trump Tower Moscow could help Trump win the 2016 election. 

“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater wrote to Cohen, according to emails obtained by The New York Times. “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

Sater became an FBI informant after pleading guilty for his role in a 1998 stock fraud scheme committed by New York mafia members, Politico reported.