Who Is Rob Goldstone, Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian Connection?

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Rob Goldstone, the man who set up the explosive meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a politically connected Russian lawyer, is a British Jewish music publicist who has worked with the Trumps on the Miss Universe pageant.
Goldstone, who represents a Russian pop star, told the Washington Post he helped organize the meeting between Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr. along with Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in July 2016.
Trump Jr. admitted hoping to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Kremlin insider, but Goldstone insisted to the Post that the meeting was supposed to be about Veselnitskaya’s efforts to reverse U.S. sanctions that resulted in a Russian ban on American adoptions in the country.
“It was like, ‘Can you keep an eye on it? Should [Trump] be in power, maybe that’s a conversation that he may have in the future?’ ” Goldstone told the paper.
Goldstone was an organizer along with the Trumps of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. He manages Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star whose father is a wealthy Russian property developer.
Goldstone, who is vacationing in Greece, grew up in Manchester, England and attended Jewish day schools there. He once worked as a cub reporter for a now-defunct Jewish newspaper.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
