美国国家公共电台 NPR Rob Goldstone On His Infamous Russia Email: 'I Had No Idea What I Was Talking About'

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's go inside a Trump¹ Tower meeting room now and take a look at that now infamous² June 2016 meeting between high-level Trump campaign officials and a delegation³ from Russia. NPR's Miles Parks has been talking with the British-born music publicist who helped set up that meeting. He has a book out today, which is called, "Pop Stars, Pageants⁴ & Presidents: How An Email Trumped⁵ My Life."

ROB GOLDSTONE: To be really honest, I have no idea what I was talking about.

MILES PARKS, BYLINE⁶: That's Rob Goldstone. He was a publicist who today lives in Hoboken, N.J. He wrote what he calls maybe the most famous email in history to Donald Trump Jr. You've read it or at least heard about it. The Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton and wanted to give it to the Trump campaign. Goldstone wrote that the crown prosecutor⁷ of Russia had met with the father of his client, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, and Goldstone says Emin asked him to send Trump Jr. an email. Even though Goldstone says he didn't have any details about what incriminating information he was promising⁸, he tried to get more information from Emin before he reached out to Trump Jr., but his client wouldn't elaborate.

GOLDSTONE: I pushed one more time, and when there was no response, I said, you know this is a really bad idea and nothing good can come from this.

PARKS: He says that wasn't because he knew about the potential consequences. It is illegal for a foreign country to provide anything of value to a campaign, but Goldstone said he had a bad feeling because he was just a music publicist. He had once toured Australia following Michael Jackson. But he says he didn't know anything about politics. History, though, had been made. Trump Jr. responded, if it's what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer. So after Emin and Trump Jr. talked on the phone, Goldstone was then recruited to set up an in-person meeting - June 9, 2016, Trump Tower.

GOLDSTONE: I ended up sitting next to Jared Kushner. I was opposite the Russian delegation, as I call them. And Manafort and Don Jr. were sitting at the head of the table.

PARKS: Goldstone says Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya didn't have dirt on Hillary Clinton. What she did was launch into a convoluted⁹ presentation that attempted to tie an alleged¹⁰ tax fraud scheme to the Democrats¹¹. After she was interrupted and asked to get to the point, she pivoted¹² to talk about American sanctions on Russia and counter-sanctions from Russia that made it so Americans couldn't adopt Russian children. Donald Trump Jr. talked about the presentation on Fox News last summer.

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DONALD TRUMP JR: And there was, you know, some small talk. I don't even remember what it was. It just was sort of nonsensical, inane¹³ and garbled¹⁴ and then quickly went on to, you know, a story about Russian adoption¹⁵ and how we could possibly help. And, really, that's where we shut it down.

PARKS: But the meeting, which by all accounts was about 20 minutes long, has had a lasting¹⁶ effect. It's become a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller as he investigates whether any Americans conspired¹⁷ with the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 election. Even if the Russians didn't provide information that was considered useful by the Trumps¹⁸, they did provide a political tip. Goldstone has testified before a grand jury as part of that investigation¹⁹, and he's also answered questions from three different congressional committees. He's a crucial piece of the Russia puzzle, even though he says he didn't know anything about a grander scheme by Russia to affect the election. In the email Goldstones sent, however, he specifically says that the information he wants to provide Trump Jr. is, quote, "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." He now says he was just bloviating in an attempt to get Trump Jr.'s attention.

GOLDSTONE: It came from the mind that is Rob Goldstone, but it's based on very specific things. Look, I have been in Moscow with Donald Trump during Miss Universe. I had seen how people reacted to him. I never met a person in Russia that didn't say, Trump? We love Trump. It was all Trump.

PARKS: The president and his family have repeatedly changed their story on the Trump Tower meeting. At first, they said it was only about adoption. Then they acknowledged it was to get information on an opponent, which Trump tweeted last month was, quote, "totally illegal." As for Goldstone, he says his publicist work these days is nearly impossible because he's better-known than most of his clients.

Miles Parks, NPR News, Washington.