Trump-Russia Plot Thickens Over Obscure Azerbaijani Pop Star’s Video — Featuring Trump

The mystery of whether President Donald Trump, his family, or anyone affiliated with his campaign colluded with Russian agents during or after the 2016 presidential election just added a new layer of intrigue: a...music video?

Azerbaijani pop singer Emin's video for "In Another Life" features Trump in a guest-starring role, along with several contestants from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. Trump, who owned the Miss Universe pageant at that time, has only a brief part, adding his signature Apprentice catchphrase "You're fired" at the end. But that's not why the video is garnering all this attention now.

Emin is right in the middle of Monday's (July 10) late-breaking news that during the campaign Trump's son, Donald Jr., met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer because he thought she had damaging information on Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. In other words, this could be exactly the kind of direct collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign that the political world has been buzzing about for months.

That meeting -- also attended by Trump's son-in-law and chief adviser, Jared Kushner, and his then–campaign manager, Paul Manafort -- was apparently set up by Emin's publicist, Rob Goldstone. Emin's father, the billionaire Aras Agalarov, and President Trump have an extensive business history, including attempts to bring a Trump Tower to Moscow:

Agalarov is connected with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As The New York Times reported, Agalarov's company "has won several large state building contracts, and Mr. Putin awarded him the 'Order of Honor of the Russian Federation.' "

When the news broke of the June meeting at Trump Tower in New York, Trump Jr. issued a series of confusing and apparently contradictory statements, saying first that the meeting was about Russian-American child-adoption policy (which is also highly controversial), then admitting that he was told about the Clinton dirt. He tried to clear it up on Twitter:

Trump Jr.'s attempts assuage worries over collusion, claiming the meeting "went nowhere" haven't helped much at all -- because it still wouldn't make it okay that he accepted a meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damning information on Clinton obtained by the Russian government in an attempt to sway the election in Trump's favor.

As for the video now bouncing around social media, it features Emin falling asleep at a very boring meeting. In his slumber, he daydreams about several women in pageant sashes for Russia, the U.S., Poland, Switzerland and Puerto Rico that he could have had "in another life."

Later, Spain, Ukraine, the Philippines, Japan and Turkey join in on the fun. Emin even gets to dream about a pool party before being rudely woken up and "fired" in Trump's classic finger-pointing style.

So, does this video add fire to the flames of rumors of collusion? It sure doesn't make the waters any less muddy.

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