The British music publicist who arranged a meeting between Donald Trump's inner circle and a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton has insisted he was a merely "useful idiot" who became inadvertently embroiled in the scandal.
Rob Goldstone has agreed to be questioned by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the meeting, which is at the heart of a probe into alleged collusion between Mr Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin.
The publicist emailed the US leader's son, Donald Trump Jr, last year offering "official" Russian documents he claimed would "incriminate" Hillary Clinton and "be very useful to your father".
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In his first interview since the scandal erupted, Mr Goldstone said he regretted his involvement but insisted he had merely been a "useful idiot".
"I never thought in a million years that an email I wrote to [Donald Trump Jr]... would be examined by the world many times over," he told The Sunday Times. "I should have listened to that little voice in my head. I remember specifically saying to Emin: you know, we probably shouldn't get involved in this."
He said the meeting at Trump Tower ended inconclusively, adding he believed the Russians used the promise of dirt on Ms Clinton as a "pretext" to lobby the Trump campaign on unrelated issues.
Mr Goldstone claimed he "puffed up" the wording of his emails to Mr Trump Jr to secure the meeting.
"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," the publicist added.
Goldstone claims that he does not know of any other collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign but that if there was he had no part in it.
It really does not make any difference if Goldstone "puffed up" the wording or not, the important thing is that Junior thought he was taking a meeting with the Russians in order to receive illegally obtained information that could be used against his father's opponent, because the Kremlin wanted them to win the election.
Collusion.
Source http://ift.tt/2jaXA0Z
