Woman Who Helped Organize Miss Universe in 2013 Announced Trump’s Presidential Run in January, 2015
The businesswoman is good friends with Emin Agalarov.
The woman in charge of organizing the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 posted on Twitter in January, 2015 announcing that Donald Trump was running for President.
Yulia Alferova was asked by Emin and Aras Agalarov, who helped arrange the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskyaka, to organize the social media operations of Miss Universe 2013. Alferova was with Trump nearly every step of the way in Moscow, as documented by various posts on social media:
According to the Daily Beast, Trump gave Alferova his personal business card and asked her to call whenever she was in New York. There is currently no evidence that suggests Alferova ever took Trump up on his offer.
Alferova worked for Aras and Emin Agalarov’s Crocus Group, and has been described as Emin’s closest associate. Emin Agalarov, Aras’s son and a pop star in Russia, told the Washington Post that he visits with Trump in his office whenever he is in New York. Trump even appeared in one of Emin’s music videos, shot in 2013:
Aras Agalarov, a billionaire real estate developer, is close to Putin and was awarded the Order of Honor in 2013 for building a university complex for the Kremlin. Such projects, the Washington Post notes, “are sometimes completed at a loss to the developers, a price they pay in exchange for maintaining good relations with Russia’s highly centralized authorities.”
With these connections to the Kremlin in mind, it appears that Alferova announced on Twitter in January, 2015 that Donald Trump was running for President:
US media reports at the time were downplaying Trump’s (and Palin’s) purported interest in running for President. It is unclear how Alferova knew that Trump was indeed running for President approximately five months before he officially announced his candidacy. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This revelation adds another layer to the Agalarov aspect of the Trump-Russia story. The two men were mentioned in the emails to Don Jr before the now infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Rob Goldstone, Emin Agalarov’s publicist, wrote to then-candidate Trump’s son promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton saying, “This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.” Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met with the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and other Kremlin-connected Russians.
Alferova, according to a source, was sent pictures directly from Emin Agalarov of the June 2013 meeting with Trump to post on her blog. That meeting in Las Vegas culminated in the agreement for Trump to bring Miss Universe to Moscow.
Alferova’s tweet raises new questions about who Donald Trump was in contact with in the run up to the election. If she was indeed privy to Trump’s decision to run for President, it casts doubt on Trump’s claim that, “[t]his Russian connection is nonsense.”
Contact the Writer: @ScottMStedman
