Businessman who was misquoted in the Mueller report’s ‘golden showers’ footnote about Trump takes his lawsuit against the Department of Justice to the DC appeals court – and insists his life has been destroyed
Georgian-American businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze says a federal appeals court is ready to give him the relief he has sought for years since the Mueller report named him in an infamous footnote about Donald Trump as a “show of gold.”
Rtskhiladze sued former special counsel Robert Mueller and the Justice Department after he was quoted as telling former Trump aide Michael Cohen that he had “stopped the flow of tapes from Russia.”
Its inclusion proved explosive in light of rumors included in the Steele dossier about Trump’s alleged lewd behavior at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton hotel – rumors that were never confirmed. Rtskhiladze continues to claim that he was slandered by a footnote that altered his texts addressed to Cohen ahead of the 2016 election campaign.
“The Mueller report published an incorrect version of what I told them when I spoke to the grand jury,” Rtskhiladze told DailyMail.com from Kazakhstan after his lawyer appeared before a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Georgian-American businessman Georgiy Rtskhiladze is suing Robert Mueller and the Justice Department over a footnote mentioning his correspondence with former Trump aide Michael Cohen.
A lower court judge ruled that the businessman, who was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (he was inaccurately identified in the report as Russian), did not have standing to sue.
His lawyer, Jerome Madden, told a three-judge panel Friday that the decision was wrong. “This is a case where the Justice Department itself released part of the transcript (of his client’s grand jury interview with prosecutors) for public comment, causing a media frenzy.” And when it did, it misquoted the transcript and left out significant portions,” he said in court.
Counsel continued to argue against footnote 112. “This footnote has deprived my client of his livelihood. All he wants to do is be able to go into a public forum and say, “Look, this is what I actually said.” That’s all.
“We didn’t know anything about tapes,” said Rtskhiladze, who is in Kazakhstan for a meeting of film producers and Georgia’s culture minister, seeking to bring more Hollywood film productions to Georgia.
Recalling how the episode began, he said he was at his home in Connecticut when he received a call from a friend in Moscow who called and wanted to share gossip because he knew he was doing business with the Trump Organization.
“I heard someone bragging about Trump tapes from Russia. And I told Michael: watch out, there are rumors.”
“Of course, I had no idea about the golden shower… Nobody talked about any rain,” he said.
Rtskhiladze wants access to the original minutes of the grand jury meeting. Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the transcripts to be kept secret. His lawyer said we need to be able to publicize this.
In the above excerpt, Rtskhiladze wrote to Cohen in 2016: “The flow of some recordings from Russia has stopped.”
But there was no word in the Mueller report, when it included details, that it said Rtskhiladze said, “The flow of tapes from Russia has stopped.” It’s a small but significant difference that his complaint says suggests he was aware of the contents. Rtskhiladze has repeatedly stated that, in his opinion, this is just “bragging.”
He previously told DailyMail.com that the information was included to damage Trump and “kill me” as a scapegoat.
Lower U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Rtskhiladze failed to prove intentional malfeasance and that “the obvious explanation is a simple editorial error.” Bloomberg Lowe reported.
Rtskhiladze is not the only one obsessing over the Mueller report, years after its April 2019 release.
Messages obtained by DailyMail.com show Rtskhiladze told Cohen: “The flow of some records has stopped.”
When Rtskhiladze mentioned that it “isn’t a big deal” but said there are “a lot of stupid people,” Cohen responded, “You have no idea.”
Mueller’s report cited “unverified allegations that the Russians had incriminating recordings” of Trump while he was in Russia for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller included a footnote to the texts and said it may refer to the golden shower portion of the dossier.
Mueller’s report mentions Steele’s “uncorroborated claim that the Russians have incriminating records of the President’s behavior while he was a private citizen during a trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013.” This was a reference to unfounded accusations against the Carlton Hotel, the former Ritz-Carlton Moscow.
Trump himself continues to raise this topic, as well as the golden shower episode, speaking out against the “witch hunt”, despite four criminal trials.
He did it again in Fort Dodge Iowa last month.
“It all started with Russia, Russia, Russia, remember that?” Trump told the crowd.
“He was with four prostitutes. You think it was good that night to go and tell your wife: “That’s not true, honey, I love you very much.” Not true!’ In fact, she didn’t believe it because she said, “He’s a germaphobe; He’s not into it, you know? He doesn’t like golden showers as they call it, no.
“I don’t like this idea. No, I thought it would be a big problem. I had a hard night ahead of me. But she did a very good job at this,” he said of former first lady Melania Trump.
Even if the three-judge panel rules against him, Rtskhiladze could try to get the entire trial reviewed by the full panel.
“We’re going to go all the way to where we need to go. If I have to go to the Supreme Court… and go on a hunger strike,” he said, he would do it to clear his name.
“This should never happen,” he said.