As further details emerge of the meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign, the role of Rob Goldstone has provided further intrigue.

Goldstone, a British music publicist and former tabloid journalist, told the Associated Press he had set up the meeting – in which Trump Jr met Natalia Veselnitskaya, along with Paul Manafort, the campaign’s chairman at the time, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at Trump Tower in June 2016 – on behalf of a client in Moscow named Emin Agalarov, the son of a Moscow-based developer who tried to partner with Trump in a hotel project.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that Goldstone had informed Trump Jr before the meeting that Veselnitskaya could offer damaging information about Hillary Clinton – and that the material was part of a Russian government attempt to boost his father’s presidential campaign.

But who is Rob Goldstone?

Hours after Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 election, he posted a photograph to Instagram in which he wore a T-shirt with a large “RUSSIA” logo. He captioned the picture: “Hedging bets.” After a Guardian reporter posted the picture to Twitter late on Sunday, it was erased from Goldstone’s account and the account was locked from public view.

An image from Rob Goldstone’s Instagram account.

The music publicist has for several years shuttled between the US and Russia while representing Agalarov. According to his Instagram account, Goldstone has made at least 19 visits to Russia since the spring of 2013. In one post he described Moscow as his second home.

He has also made at least eight trips to Baku, the capital of the former Soviet state Azerbaijan, where his client Agalarov was born and retains a large fan base.

Donald Trump appeared in a music video with Agalarov in 2013 that featured several Miss Universe contestants, a pageant he owned at that time. In November that year, Trump tweeted to Agalarov: “I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!”

Goldstone’s posts indicate that he was in Moscow 10 days before the 9 June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, and then returned to spend most of that July in Russia and Azerbaijan. When Trump announced his campaign for the US presidency in June 2015, Goldstone claimed to have already been briefed on Trump’s intentions during a meeting he and Agalarov enjoyed at Trump Tower the previous month, writing: “He talked about his planned run for President of the USA – which became official today!”

The music publicist continued to support Trump’s campaign. Around the time of the early presidential primary contests, he posed for a photograph in one of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps, which Goldstone described as “My Iowa hat”. In March 2016, Goldstone posted a photograph of himself, Agalarov and Trump “deep in discussion over dinner in Vegas”.

Goldstone championed Putin in another Instagram post during the US presidential election. He posted a photograph of the Russian president featuring a quotation that was falsely attributed to the Russian president about killing terrorists. “Well said VVP,” Goldstone said in his own caption, using Putin’s initials.