This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Each time another Russian boot has dropped, President Donald Trump has had the luxury of plausible deniability.
Well, maybe there were meetings with top advisers, he could claim, but there was no evidence anyone on his campaign knew the Russians were working to help get him elected.
That facade collapsed Tuesday, with the release of Donald Trump Jr.'s emails showing he knowingly conspired to receive promised dirt on Hillary Clinton that was being provided at the behest of the Russian government.
It is a stunning revelation, the type of 100 megaton bombshell that is really incomparable to anything since the Watergate scandal.
Or, if you're Sen. Orrin Hatch, it's "irrelevant," "a bunch of bunk," and "overblown."
This from a guy who voted to impeach a president for lying about having sex in the Oval Office. What does it take, a handwritten love letter from Vladimir Putin plotting "Operation Manchurian Candidate"?
No, senator. The revelation of this meeting pushes the Russia scandal into a new realm.
It proves, without a doubt, that when Trump Jr. was presented with an opportunity to help the Russian government intervene and corrupt the American electoral process, his response was: "if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer."
Because, really, late summer is the perfect time for light treason.
He loved it so much he brought in the campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his brother-in-law and prominent Trump foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner. He loved it so much that they went ahead with the meeting and, in doing so, chose sides, picking a foreign power that Mitt Romney called America's "No. 1 geopolitical foe" over American democracy.
It's a pretty warped view of daddy's vision of "America first."
Whether the Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, whom he met with actually delivered the goods — Trump Jr. says she didn't — doesn't matter now. The intent of Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner was crystal clear: The three men conspired based on the belief that the Russian government might help Trump win the election.
And then they tried to cover it up, lying about their Russia interactions in what has become a disturbing pattern for this administration.
Michael Flynn was fired as National Security Adviser after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about repeated discussions with the Russian ambassador. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been forced to recuse himself from involvement in the Russia investigation because he, too, had meetings with the ambassador and in his confirmation hearings denied any such meetings.
And Kushner conveniently left off meetings with Russian officials on a security clearance disclosure, including the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya.
And when they have been caught in their cover-ups, they have lied about it again and again, including Trump Jr.'s blatant mischaracterization of the meeting being about lifting Russian adoption restrictions, a lie that was blown out of the water when the Times obtained the emails arranging the sit-down.
Now Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner have lawyered up with high-powered criminal attorneys, which is wise, because next time they try to explain their pattern of deceit they will likely be under oath.
All of this brings us to the president who, with each new revelation about his campaign's Russia connections, has a harder time plausibly denying he had any knowledge of the Kremlin's active support of his campaign.
More importantly, each revelation that brings the Russian presence into his presidency makes that much more damning Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey for not being willing to "see [his] way clear to letting this go."
Indeed, Trump's repeated Twitter denials of any Russian interactions ring hollow and the president has some explaining to do to the American voters.
What did he know about the Russian meetings? When did he know it? Did he know about the meddling when he encouraged Russians to release Clinton's lost emails? And if he knew, why were there so many constant, unconditional denials that any attempt to influence the election ever occurred?
Until there is a full, honest and satisfactory explanation, Trump will be saddled with a shirtless Vladimir Putin on his back every day of his presidency.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke