Last week, it was revelations of an undisclosed meeting between senior Trump campaign officials, including the president’s son and son-in-law, and a Russian lawyer with clear ties to senior Russian officials.
This week, we’re hearing that Trump had a long and private discussion with Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit which the White House had no intention of disclosing. Only the Russian government knows the contents of that meeting. No U.S. note-taker was present.
It’s as if Trump and his closest associates, from Mike Flynn to Jared Kushner to Trump Jr., have a bizarre talent for getting into compromising situations involving Russians, and an even more bizarre talent for covering them up with stories that keep changing.
But Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, and his email exchange with British promoter Rob Goldstone are extremely damaging to the Trump camp.
They provide evidence that Trump’s camp attempted to cooperate with a foreign government to rustle up damaging information on their political rival, Hillary Clinton.
This attempt is summed up in the amazing quote in Goldstone’s email to Trump Jr.: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
What’s more, Veselnitskaya’s source for damaging information on Clinton was apparently Russia’s top government prosecutor — probably Prosecutor General Yury Chaika. Veselnitskaya knows him well. It’s likely that Chaika then passed it to Trump’s one-time business partner in Moscow, Aras Agalarov.
Trump Jr.’s “I love it” reaction to the “dangle,” his decision to bring senior campaign officials, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, into the meeting and his failure to report the encounter all but seal the case for “collusion.”
But collusion is not a crime. It’s a lapse in judgment.
While the meeting doesn’t provide evidence of a conspiracy to violate U.S. law, it shreds Trump’s defensive narrative. He can no longer claim “there’s no evidence of collusion.” Trump and his immediate circle lose out. Bigly.