You don’t have to work for the special counsel to know the prolonged war between the Trumps and the truth over Russia will soon bring more startling revelations. It wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Boris, Natasha and Bullwinkle the Moose made an appearance at the unsettling June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower the Borgias on the Hudson held to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian operatives.
Even the surly dimwit Donald Trump, Jr. must be beginning to recognize his secret gambit to deliver damaging information to his father of Clinton dealings with malignant Russians was a terrible idea. If not, the start of congressional hearings on the Trumps and their Moscow mission will leave them in no doubt of their blunder.
The waves of lies Trump minor told as New York Times reporters began closing in on the sordid tale will be magnified under the stark light of an open hearing broadcast for the world to witness. The meeting was not about poor Russian waifs stranded in their native land while loving Americans were stymied in their attempts to adopt the orphans. It was always about conspiring with Russian operatives to do down Clinton and elect generous Clinton donor Donald Trump, Sr. President of the United States.
The intersection of dark interests at Trump Tower 13 months ago featured a crew that was destined to raise suspicions if word ever got out. Certainly Team Trump must have known that. It may have been one reason for the relentless denials of any contact with Russian influencers during the campaign.
What we know so far is devastating to the Trump campaign’s patriotism and veracity. Donald Jr. gets an email from the publicist for a Russian pop singer who is the son of a Russian mogul seeking a meeting with the promise of the goods on Clinton. Donald Jr. is delighted with the dangling bait and sets up the meeting.
A Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, with Kremlin contracts is the messenger. She is joined on her side by two others with suspicious Russian contacts, one of whom is a former Soviet counterintelligence officer. However wide the circle the Trump side at that meeting enjoyed in their daily lives, this meeting had to have been unusual. Certainly for an American political campaign at any level it was—or should have been—unlike any other.
On its own, that was a memorable meeting. One other aspect of it should have helped keep memories bright in the heads of the participants: the interpreter. Veselnitskaya brought an interpreter. That always slows the pace of conversation at a confab. Trump whisperer and son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort would have had plenty of time to take in the conversation.
How many meetings at Trump Tower did that crowd running an American presidential campaign attend with a Russian interpreter in the room? It does not take decades of experience as a prosecutor to know the answer ought to be zero. Even those animated icons Rocky and Bullwinkle could have figured that out in one episode.
It seems unlikely that the meeting was never mentioned to presidential candidate Trump. As questions about Russian influence and sympathies continued to dog the campaign, we are supposed to believe that the June meeting was not spoken of because it was forgotten by all. Not likely.
The slippery public comments of participants in the meeting suggest we are in the “to the best of my recollection” phase of this saga. Memories implausibly lost will now be revised to merely dim. Middle East peace negotiator Kushner will have some explaining to do when he faces congressional interlocutors on how he left that Trump Tower meeting off his questionnaire for a top-level national security clearance.
The bright spot in this dark tale is that the Trumps brought it on themselves. By their own emails shall we know them. Trump minor was delighted (“I love it!”) at the prospect of help from the Russians in wounding Hillary Clinton. They cannot plausibly claim that they are the victims of a dark conspiracy to short-circuit all that winning the thin-skinned family patriarch promised the nation. No, this is their own collective malignant nature at work, willing to sacrifice the national interest for their own.
