Red Handed

The Russia Scandal Hits Home.

The most pressing question of our time might be: How bad is it?

As a candidate and now as President, Donald Trump has smashed the gauges that once tracked the normal temperature, pressure and wind speed in the climate map of American politics. Now when it feels like the barometer is plunging, we can only watch and wonder: Who can predict what’s coming next, with so many broken indicators?

A bombshell report in the New York Times revealed the junior Trump’s enthusiastic response to “obviously very high level and sensitive” morsels supposedly collected by the Kremlin–a report so accurate that the young Trump shared the proof himself on Twitter rather than try the #FakeNews dodge. Then the President’s eldest son paid a visit to Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show. For Trumpers in trouble, this is like a grounded child serving detention at Grandpa’s house. He frowns, then spins a better excuse than the child could ever create alone, followed by ice cream.

Even in that gentle setting, Trump Jr. felt a need to drop the nonstop offense of brand Trump. “In retrospect,” he said, “I probably would have done things a little differently.”

So, how bad is it? Investigators in Congress and the Justice Department have miles to go before determining whether President Trump or his son, son-in-law or advisers cooperated–or even conspired–with Russian officials to tilt the outcome of last year’s election. But this much is now clear, thanks to Trump Jr.’s Twitter stream: whether the Trumps teamed up with the Russians or not, they certainly wanted to. And that overrides the months of denials from the Trump orbit that there was anything to what the President has repeatedly called a “witch hunt.” When Trump Jr. was asked on July 24, 2016, about Democratic claims that Russia was trying to help the Trump campaign, he responded with unmitigated outrage on CNN. “It’s disgusting. It’s so phony,” he said. “I can’t think of bigger lies.”

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