For a trip that would later spawn political intrigue and legal fallout, Donald Trump’s 2013 visit to Moscow was surprisingly short. It appears he spent no more than two nights there on his jaunt to the Miss Universe pageant he co-owned. Yet what happened in that narrow window of time reverberates almost four years later.
Through that weekend, Trump hobnobbed with Russian-Azerbaijani pop star Emin Agalarov, the son of the pageant’s host. It was Emin who last year had his manager, Rob Goldstone, arrange a meeting in New York between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer to discuss dirt on Hillary Clinton. Goldstone, who’d handled press for the pageant, initiated the now infamous email chain -- made public on Tuesday -- that shows the younger Trump pursuing information for his father’s campaign that he was told came from Russia’s government.