Trump Jr. when a Russian lawyer offered dirt on Clinton: “I love it”

Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted an email chain which seems to confirm the Russian government offered him information that would “incriminate Hillary” in an effort to help his father win the U.S. election.

An email — with the subject line “Russia – Clinton – private and confidential” — was sent to Trump Jr. in early June 2016 from Rob Goldstone, one of his father’s former Russian business associates. In it, Goldstone said one of his clients, a popstar known to the Trumps, had been contacted by a senior Russian government official who offered documents that “would be very useful to [Trump Jr.’s] father.”

“This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone’s email continued.

In his response, Trump Jr. said, “If it’s what you say, I love it especially later in the summer.”

Trump Jr. published the email chain on Twitter at the same time as the latest bombshell New York Times report on the meeting was published, which included contents of the emails.

In a statement accompanying the release, Trump Jr. said he had wanted to post the emails even before the “Russian fever was in vogue” and that he was “agitated” by the meeting, which he called “the most inane nonsense [he] ever heard.

Goldstone, an entertainment publicist, facilitated a meeting last June between Trump Jr. and the Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Also cc’d in the email chain was Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chief Paul Manafort, who also reportedly attended the eventual meeting.

In an interview with NBC, Veselnitskaya denied she had links to the Kremlin. In his emails, however, Goldstone described her as a “Russian government attorney.”

The meeting was arranged at the request of Russian popstar Emin Agalarov, who said Veselnitskaya had information on illegal donations to the DNC. Emin is the son of Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire who Vladimir Putin awarded the Order of Honor in 2013 and who’d planned to build a Trump Tower with the U.S. president before the election halted the project.

Goldstone is a colorful character as well. He’s a prolific, albeit ill-advised, user of social media — he only posts selfies on Twitter, for instance. The day of the meeting, Goldstone checked in to Trump Tower. And then the day after the election, he posted this:

Correction 7/12/17: Due to editing error, we mischaracterized Donald Trump Jr.’s claims about the emails.