Mueller report: Trump Tower witness says without his email there'd be no collusion question
Robert Goldstone, a British publicist behind the infamous email that led to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump election campaign officials and a Russian lawyer, believes there was no collusion.
“I was there and we've seen so many people who had nothing to do with this give their opinions,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Thursday. “I've said from the very beginning that if my e-mail and the subsequent meeting formed perhaps the cornerstone of what was perceived to be evidence of collusion, there would be no collusion.”
“I'm not a legal expert but I sat in that meeting,” he added.
“And this was where there was a Russian lawyer and I thought that was supposed to be about the adoption of children from Russia, right?” Varney asked.
“So that becomes very confusing to people,” Goldstone replied.
“In my email, which was - and I've said it quite publicly, I've testified, including to Mueller and the Grand Jury -- this was a publicist, which is what I am, puffing up an e-mail to get Donald Trump Jr's attention. It was as simple as that,” he added.
But according to Goldstone, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney involved, baffled everyone, including himself and Jared Kushner, when she brought up how she was upset because people like financier and outspoken Putin critic Bill Browder were making campaign donations to Hillary Clinton.
Goldstone said when Veselnitskaya was asked to refocus she explained that she was there to discuss the Magnitsky Act and how the sanctions were impacting adoptions.
“People keep saying, why were we talking about adoptions, it's a lie,” said Goldstone. “I walked out of that meeting with only one word sticking in my mind. Why did we just have a meeting about adoption?”
“That’s what it was all about?” Varney asked. “Nothing to do with interfering in our election or Russian agents?”
“Well nothing was said there,” Goldstone replied.
“You know, again Robert Mueller’s team have spent a long time investigating just what went on. But I always believed that so many people said I was a Russian spy. I was Putin's puppet. I was all those things and very infrequently did somebody say wasn't he just a publicist that puffed up an e-mail.”
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When asked whether he feels vindicated over the finding in the Mueller report, he responded: “It's not just that I feel vindicated.”
“Look at how many other people like me have had their lives turned upside down for a couple of years,” he said adding that he was always confident that Mueller would come to a conclusion that “made perfect sense.”