Trump did have deals with Russia: It asked the Russian government to update inactive trademaks in 2016

According to The New York Times, even though Donald Trump has claimed he has not had any dealings with Russia for years, he did have dealing with Russia during 2016. The dealings involved the renewal of 10 trademarks that were inactive and were about to expire in that year. The renewal of four of the 10 trademarks was authorized on election day, 2016. From the NYT article:

Last year, while hacking Democrats’ emails and working to undermine the American presidential election, the Russian government also granted extensions to six trademarks for Mr. Trump that had been set to expire. The Trump trademarks, originally obtained between 1996 and 2007 for hotels and branding deals that never materialized, each had terms that were coming to an end in 2016.

Despite their inactivity, the Trump Organization sought extensions for the trademarks from Rospatent, the Russian government agency in charge of intellectual property. In a series of approvals starting in April 2016 and ending in December, Rospatent granted new 10-year terms for the trademarks, the agency’s records show.

What's suspicious about this is the fact that, according to the NYT, Russia does not guarantee the permission to renew trademarks, specially if they are inactive. That suggests the renewals of the Trump trademarks were definitely unusual.

One has to ask: why was Trump renewing the trademarks if he wasn't supposed to be having any dealings with Russia?

Unless his plan was to do business with Russia after the elections.

Too bad Russia got caught hacking the elections and the Trump campaign got caught allegedly colluding with Russia.