Donald Trump was offered a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin about one month after he launched his presidential bid, the Washington Post reported, citing an email that it obtained.
Rob Goldstone, a British music promoter, reportedly said he could arrange the meeting after Trump turned down his invitation to travel to Moscow. Goldstone's client, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, had wanted Trump to attend his father's birthday celebration.
"Maybe he would welcome a meeting with President Putin," Goldstone wrote in an email dated July 24, 2015 to Trump's personal assistant.
There is no indication Trump or his assistant followed up on the offer, the Post said.
Agalarov's attorney told the Post that the pop star was not aware his publicist dangled the possibility of meeting Putin. Goldstone's attorney declined to comment.
The publicist reportedly reached out several times to Trump's inner circle during the elections.
In early 2016, Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. to discuss possibly setting up a web page for Trump's campaign on VK, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. Later that year, he brokered a meeting between Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, whom he claimed held incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.