Yesterday the New York Times broke the news that despite his categorical denial that he ever met with Russian nationals during the Trump campaign, Donald Trump Jr. had in fact done so. The scientific term for Trump Jr.’s denial is “a lie.”

But today, the Times is bringing out more details about the meeting between Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, and now it looks even worse — because the meeting was set up because Trump Jr. expected Veselnitskaya to give him damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

The meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.

The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.

The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican nomination — points to the central question in federal investigations of the Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help.

The Times states that when Trump’s son was contacted yesterday and asked about the meeting, he said nothing about Hillary Clinton. And today, Trump Jr. released another statement in which he basically admits he expected to get negative info on Clinton:

In a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

A big question here: who was the “acquaintance” who arranged this meeting?

To sum up, Trump Jr. apparently sees nothing wrong about colluding with Kremlin-connected Russian nationals to get damaging information about a political opponent, obtained by hacking US agencies.

The Washington Post has now identified the “acquaintance” who brokered this meeting:

He did not name the acquaintance, but in an interview Sunday, Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who is friendly with Donald Jr., told The Washington Post that he had arranged the meeting at request of a Russian client and had attended it along with Veselnitskaya.

Goldstone has been active with the Miss Universe pageant and works as a manager for Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star whose father is a wealthy Moscow developer who sponsored the pageant in the Russian capital in 2013.

All righty then. So now the question is, who was Goldstone’s “Russian client?”

And here’s the icing on this many-layered cake of subterfuge and potential treason:

Rob Goldstone, the Donald Trump Jr. acquaintance who brokered the meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, the day after the 2016 US election: pic.twitter.com/20bMLUvDiH

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) July 9, 2017

The father of Goldstone’s client Emin Agalorov is Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov, and he has previously attempted to set up meetings between Vladimir Putin and… you guessed it… Donald Trump.

Agalarov has served as a liaison between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. According to an interview, they once discussed the construction of a Trump Tower in Russia. Agalarov had also reportedly tried to set up a meeting between the two, but this was canceled due to Putin having to meet the Dutch royal couple at the time. Putin instead sent Trump a fedoskino miniature.

As of June 2017, he had an estimated net worth of US$1.91 billion, most of which is derived from his real estate ventures. In January 2017, Forbes listed him as the 51st richest Russian.

Araz Agalarov was also mentioned in the infamous Steele Dossier:

at the request of Rob Goldstone, who manages music career of son of billionaire dev. Aras Agalarov. Mentioned in Steele Dossier re pisstape pic.twitter.com/OVYEScyRr9

— Gary Armstrong (@vanityman) July 10, 2017