Denial, anger, bargaining, depression … America is working its way toward acceptance. Not acceptance of Donald Trump in the White House. Acceptance that every suspicion about Trump, his associates, and his family, is actually true.
Time and again, Donald Trump and his allies denied it. They said there was no contact before the election. They said that any meetings that were held were routine, or that campaign officials might not have known they were meeting with Russian officials. They pinned any misbehavior on low-level staffers and failed disclosures on honest oversights.
The most far-fetched claim of all was that the Trump campaign could have colluded with the Russian government. … But the notion of actual attempts to work together seemed implausible to even many of Trump’s harshest critics—a liberal fever dream at best, a return to McCarthyist red-baiting at worst.
Wakey, wakey, America. That was no dream. It’s our national nightmare. As it becomes clear that Every. Single. Statement from Donald Trump Jr.’s account of his meeting with a Kremlin-backed lawyer were themselves lies signed off on by his father, we’re reaching the point where there is nowhere for the Trump regime to hide. They have lied. About everything.
No meetings? There were meetings. Meetings with Junior. Meetings with Flynn. Meetings with Sessions. Meetings with Kushner. Meetings with Manafort, and Page, and … there were meetings.
No attempt at collusion? They jumped at the chance for collusion. They “loved” it. They loved it when Rob Goldstone wrote to Junior, they loved it when Donald Trump waggled Wikileaks print outs in front of his rallies. They were all over collusion.
They didn’t know the Russian government was behind it? They knew. Not only did Junior get a signed announcement that the Russian government was there for pop, Donald Trump hasn’t been denying that the Russians were at the back of everything from day one because he’s an idiot. Yes, he’s an idiot. But the reason he couldn’t admit what everyone else was saying was expressly because he already knew.
When Rob Goldstone’s email to Trump Jr. included this helpful note …
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.
The most surprising thing is there is no surprise. Donald Trump Jr doesn’t respond with a “what?” or a “huh?” or even a “can you tell me what else they are doing?”
There’s a good reason for that. The social media component of the Russian cyberattack—the highly effective program in which the Russians used thousands of agents to craft specially slanted news stories to drive opinion in swing districts—actually started months earlier. It was active at the start of 2016 well before Trump secured the nomination.
When Rob Goldstone wrote to Donald Trump Jr., he wasn’t introducing a completely new idea with “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” He was just adding the Hillary Clinton disinformation as a new feature for an already existing program.
It was never funny. And never a joke. Now it’s not even a question. The only question is when Republicans in Congress will wake up to the truth that the rest of America is already seeing.