In an exclusive interview with Vice News broadcast Tuesday, Emin Agalarov, the Russian pop star whose real estate mogul father worked with Donald Trump to bring the Miss Universe Pageant to Moscow in 2013, admitted that he was the main instigator behind the now infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
Agalarov helped arrange the meeting because someone asked his father to set up a conversation between the Trump campaign and Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who later admitted to being a government informant. Agalarov told Vice he didn’t know Veselnitskaya before the meeting and also denied knowing the person who asked his father to arrange it.
“I never met her. I think my father met her a few times,” Agalarov told Vice. “I think somebody asked him to help her set that meeting knowing that we were acquainted with the Trump family. And obviously my father, being my father, said, ‘Sure, I’ll help as much as I can.’ And the next step was to call me and say, ‘Some people want to meet Trump people and ask if that could happen and please if you can make that happen.’”
During testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Donald Trump Jr. claimed that he didn’t remember if he had spoken with Agalarov before the meeting, which he attended, along with Veselnitskaya, Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort.
But Agalarov confirmed to Vice that he did speak with Trump Jr. about the logistics of the meeting ahead of time.
“I said, ‘Listen, there’s some people that want to meet you.’ They obviously want something that could potentially help them resolve things that you could be interested in or maybe not,” he told Vice. “If you can spare a few minutes of your time, I’d be grateful. If not, no problem. Obviously Don Jr., obviously being Don Jr., said, ‘Of course. I’ll do it if you’re asking.’”
The Russian pop star also confirmed that his publicist, Rob Goldstone, was exaggerating when he told Trump Jr. that the people attending the meeting had dirt on Hillary Clinton in order to “cater to the Trumps,” in Vice’s words.
Agalarov called it a “strange and ridiculous accusation” that he influenced the U.S. election in any way and also denied knowledge of sending prostitutes to Trump’s hotel room while he was in Moscow in 2013.
“Mr. Trump came to Moscow with 87 of the most beautiful ladies in the world,” Emin told Vice. “I would never even offer it because I can never live up to the high level of the most amazing and beautiful women surrounding us constantly.”
“It’s quite a strange and ridiculous accusation," Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who helped set up Donald Trump Jr.'s infamous Trump Tower meeting, said, laughing off accusations of collusion.
See it on #VICENewsTonight at 7:30 PM EDT on @HBO pic.twitter.com/Wnv4U5mRJh
— VICE News (@vicenews) July 10, 2018
