Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who helped arrange a meeting between Donald Trump Jr., a Kremlin-linked lawyer and several key members of President Donald Trump’s campaign in June 2016, said he is ready and willing to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.
During an interview with The Sunday Times, Goldstone said he used “hot-button language” when he wrote an email to Trump Jr. last year describing the nature of a proposed meeting with a Russian lawyer and promising incriminating information about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to CNN. He said he would voluntarily talk to Mueller in order to set the record straight.
“I’m keen to talk to them and put my recollection of events in the public record,” he said. “After the story initially broke, it seemed to quieten down for a while. But now it’s back in the news with such force, I feel it’s time for me to explain what happened.”
Mueller has been in conversations with Goldson’s lawyers about having him come to the U.S. for an interview, but no date has been set, CNN reported last week.
Goldstone’s emails to Trump Jr. in June 2016 flung the gates of Mueller’s investigation wide open as he, as well as Congressional committees, looked into Russian meddling and whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia to influence the election. In the email exchange, which Trump Jr. posted on Twitter this past summer, Goldstone offered the President’s son a meeting with a “Russian attorney” who had “incriminating” information about Clinton that was being offered as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Goldstone said he used “puffed up” language to try to get Trump Jr. to agree to the meeting and said he wrote the email in “three minutes. I never thought it would be read by the world.”
