Donald Trump Jr. tweeted what he claims is the full email correspondence between himself and the music publicist who reportedly arranged the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a woman who is identified as a "Russian government attorney."
In a statement attached to the tweet, Trump Jr. said he was releasing the emails "in order to be totally transparent" about the ordeal. He said the first email was from Rob Goldstone, the music publicist for a Russian pop star with connections to Trump, on June 3, 2016, who says he set up the meeting.
The New York Times
reported on Monday that Trump Jr. was told in an email that the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had damaging information about soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He was also told that this meeting was part of a Russian effort to help his father's campaign.
The emails Trump Jr. shared seem to confirm the Times report.
In the emails, Veselnitskaya is identified as a "Russian government attorney" and Goldstone tells Trump Jr. that she would like to share damanging information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump."
Goldstone says in an email to Trump that Veselnitskaya "offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."
In response to Goldstone's initial email requesting the meeting and promising incriminating information on Clinton, Trump Jr. responded, "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer."
In that first email, Goldstone wrote that the "crown prosecutor of Russia" met with Aras Agalarov, a wealthy Azerbaijani-Russian developer who brought now-President Donald Trump's Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013, and "offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."
