President Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, just made the rounds on the morning shows, armed with a clear message: The president was only made aware of the email chain https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/11/five-key-facts-about-donald-trump-jr-s-just-released-explosive-email-exchange/ (incriminating his son) in the last few days, and only saw it when the imminent publication of the email chain compelled Donald Trump Jr. to release it himself.
But this claim comes even as
new reporting in the New York Times indicates that President Trump signed off on a statement from Trump Jr. a few days ago that flatly misrepresented what happened in his June 2016 meeting with the Russian lawyer.
And this raises a question: How far did the President himself go to mislead the public about his own campaign’s willingness to collude with Russia to tip the election?
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But it’s significant. Whatever the legal relevance of this email chain turns out to be, this is the first time we have concrete confirmation of the Trump campaign’s willingness, or even eagerness, to collude with Russia’s efforts to tip the election, one that involved his son, son-in-law (Jared Kushner), and then-campaign chair (Paul Manafort). If the Times’ reporting is accurate, Trump is now directly implicated in an active effort to mislead the country about concrete, known facts that illustrate beyond doubt his campaign’s eagerness to conspire with Russia’s efforts to sabotage our democracy.
This is the case, at a minimum. And it is plausible that lots more will be coming out about these collusion efforts. But the president’s and White House’s handling of this chapter suggests they are hoping to lie their way through it all, one day at a time, one lie at a time, and don’t have any real way to cope with just how serious it is likely to become.