Publicist ‘hyped’ Clinton claims to arrange meeting with Trump’s son

The British publicist who set up a contentious meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer during the US election campaign has said he was “hyping” claims of compromising information on Hillary Clinton in his pitch to the president’s son.

Rob Goldstone, a dual British and US citizen who has been based in New York for 20 years, spoke yesterday about the exchange, which rocked the US political scene amid claims of Russian interference in last year’s election.

In emails made public by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone offered to arrange a meeting in June last year with a Russian government prosecutor who could hand over “official” documents that could “incriminate” Mrs Clinton, Donald Trump’s Democrat rival.

Mr Goldstone said it was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump”.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any “collusion” with Russia, calling the claims “fake news”.

The music publicist, who knew Mr Trump Jr from work on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, said he acted as a go-between for his client, Russian singer and businessman Emin Agalarov, and Mr Trump Jr against his bet- ter judgment. “I should have listened to that little voice in my head,” Mr Goldstone told a newspaper.

“But I never thought in a million years that an email I wrote in about three minutes to Don Jr would be examined by the world many times over.

“I just needed to get him to respond. I could have said that the Russian attorney believes she found a black hole or believes Santa is real, it didn’t really matter. So when he replied ‘if it’s what you say it is, I love it,’ I just thought my teaser had worked. If I’m guilty of anything, and I hate the word guilty, it’s hyping the message and going the extra mile for my clients.”