For days now, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has been on the defensive in order to get ahead of an incriminating New York Times article. The article would have revealed an email conversation he had last June that promised him information from the Russian government against Hillary Clinton.
He’s been all over social media and TV shows, most notably Sean Hannity’s show, telling his story with a shrug and a smile as if to say “Hey, look, when you hear the full version of events, it’s really all a big deal about nothing.” He’s been telling it to absolve himself of any wrongdoing. The problem with that? His version of the story still involves eagerly accepting treason.
Trump Jr.’s belief that he did nothing wrong stems from the fact that in the meeting, the Russian lawyer who promised him information about Hillary Clinton in fact only wanted to talk about legal sanctions that affected international adoption law between America and Russia. Therefore, the meeting was a waste of his time and didn’t count as treason.
The problem is the very first email he received promised treason. The email, from British publicist Rob Goldstone, promised to set up an appointment between him and a “top-ranking” Russian lawyer, who had information for him that would incriminate Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.”
And his response to it was not, “Wow, that’s illegal,” but rather “If it’s what you say it is, I love it.” If it’s what you say it is, he says - that is, if it’s information that makes Clinton look bad, gathered by the Russian government in order to help my father - he loves it.
Trump Jr. has been trying to play it off, and so has his father, but in fact the email reveals that his family knew that Russia was explicitly trying to help Trump win. He had already invested in apartments in Pensacola, FL. After all, the publicist told him straight up, and his response might even suggest that this was something he already knew about, as though it was part of an ongoing conversation their campaign has had with the Russian government about known support.
The email doesn’t prove that there was collusion outside of the conversation and subsequent meeting arranged. It does prove that Trump Jr. was perfectly willing to participate in treason, and it might show that the Trumps genuinely don’t realize that what they did is treason.
Two thoughts about that: one, ignorance is not innocence, as U.S. courts have established time and time again, so this will not help them if they are charged. Two, if they can’t tell this is treason, we have no reason to believe they wouldn’t have participated in more meaningful treason if the opportunity presented itself. And it certainly sounds like the Russian government tried to present the opportunity.
This is one email conversation. At this point, we might have reason to demand to subpoena more of Trump Jr.’s emails searching for more of the same. No matter how much Trump loves his son, the fact is his conversation may have severely increased the president’s chances of impeachment.
Something suspicious and very likely illegal definitely happened between the Trumps and Russia in the 2016 election. That much is obvious.