Donald Trump Jr.’s emails put spotlight on publicist Rob Goldstone
Rob Goldstone, an obscure British-born publicist and music promoter who arranged a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer allegedly linked to the Kremlin, is suddenly at the centre of the investigation into Moscow’s attempts to influence the US election.
His emails to President Donald Trump’s eldest son last summer, which were released by Mr. Trump Jr. on Tuesday, have offered the clearest evidence yet that a member of the candidate’s inner circle knew about Russia’s efforts to help their campaign.
Mr Goldstone has spent 13 years representing Emin Agalarov, an aspiring Russian pop star whose billionaire father, Aras, is often referred to as “the Donald Trump of Russia.” When the elder Mr Agalarov arranged for Moscow to host the Miss Universe pageant that Mr Trump owned in 2013, Mr Trump even appeared in a music video with Emin.
By virtue of his work for the Agalarovs, Mr Goldstone developed a relationship with the Trump organisation. He first emailed the younger Mr Trump on June 3, 2016, with hopes of setting up a meeting for Natalia Veselnitskaya, an lawyer who is alleged to have close ties to President Vladimir Putin.
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump,” Mr Goldstone wrote in an email to the younger Mr. Trump.
“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” he responded.
The meeting between Ms Veselnitskaya and three senior campaign officials took place six days later at Trump Tower.
The president’s son posted the email exchange with Mr Goldstone on Twitter today, moments before the New York Times posted a story documenting the exchange.
He said in a statement that the Russian lawyer he met, Ms Veselnitskaya, wasn’t working for the Russian government, and Ms Veselnitskaya herself has denied ties to the Kremlin. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, said the Kremlin doesn’t know Ms Veselnitskaya and “cannot keep track of every Russian lawyer and their meetings within the country or abroad.”
Mr Goldstone, who had been more forthcoming in interviews earlier this week, referred all questions about his emails with Mr. Trump to his lawyer after their release.
Mr Goldstone founded his publicist firm, Oui 2 Entertainment, with David Wilson in 1988 after years of work in the music-marketing business. The Manhattan-based company has partnered with EMI Music Publishing, Best Buy and The Friar’s Club, according to Oui 2’s website.
Born in Great Britain, Mr. Goldstone studied as a journalist and “worked for daily newspapers and radio stations in London,” according to the website. He left journalism for the bright lights of the music industry, the website states, moving to Sydney, Australia, “after being chosen by Michael Jackson to accompany him exclusively on his 1999 Australian tour.”
In 2010, he wrote a New York Times op-ed titled, “The Tricks and Trials of Traveling While Fat.”
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters Tuesday that Moscow’s alleged use of Mr. Goldstone to set up the meeting seemed “consistent with Russian tradecraft.”
“He’s clearly very much of a self-promoter and a promoter generally and it’s clear he saw this meeting as a way for him to get in the game with Trump,” said Christopher R. Hill, who served Republican and Democratic administrations as U.S. ambassador to several countries including Iraq. “The Russians, who are good at finding these sort of useful idiots, obviously saw the value in using him.”
On Monday, Mr Goldstone said that he didn’t pay attention to what was said in the June 9 meeting between Ms. Veselnitskaya and the three senior campaign officials — the president’s eldest son, then-campaign CEO Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and now a senior White House adviser.
“I was [there] but took no notice as I was simply there to introduce them and then wait and take them out again,” he said. “I work in music — politics is a foreign language for me.”
But on the day after President Trump’s surprise victory in last year’s election, Mr. Goldstone posted a photograph to Instagram in which he wore a T-shirt with a large “RUSSIA” logo. He captioned the picture: “Hedging bets.”
The photograph was no longer visible on Sunday, when Mr Goldstone appears to have locked his account from public view.
Jason Douglas, Rebecca Ballhaus, Felicia Schwartz and Lukas Alpert contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...e/news-story/42836faa34b08d65c62510954f03bfd3
