Archives for July 2017

Last Wednesday, President Trump honored The New York Times with an hour’s audience in the Oval Office. It was the first time since his taking office that the paper and the president would meet. Probably, this was for the best. As of late, the two have become inveterate enemies, sworn opponents, and overt foes. The president complains of the newspaper’s slanted coverage and Tweets responses like salvos in the forms of vitriolic op-eds; the Times, having pushed his buttons, provoked a discussion, and promoted its agenda, simply smiles and carries on. Between them, the truth lies, but neither has particular alacrity in finding or grasping it. For this reason, it was surprising to learn that Trump would countenance this type of unabridged, unscripted long-form interview, much less with the anathematized The New York Times. Till now, he’d been uncharacteristically coy in front of the media. He hadn’t sat for an interview of this type and of this breadth for months.

Our patience was rewarded. The contents of his interview with the Times proved delicious. They were remarkable, but not so much for how they would eventually appear to us above the fold, but for their accompanied audio. Captured and then released by the reporters, as if they’d gotten hold of an unguided bird or a desultory dove, was Trump’s and the Times’ candid conversation. This, and not the printed story in black and white, is what made headlines. As if goading, charming, and tiring a bull to its knees, the three Times reporters—Maggie Haberman, Peter Baker, and Michael Schmidt—worked on the president with incisive ease and finesse. They lent the president just enough rope with which he might hang himself, and as if an eagerly condemned man upon the gallows might, he tightened the noose and pulled the lever.

Having studied Trump’s idiosyncrasies for the past two years (a daunting and exhausting task, no doubt), the reporters were able to pull from this president many admissions and details that mightn’t have been so openly volunteered. They baited him with brief, open-ended questions to which Trump responded at length. He is loquacious and naturally affable, but, more importantly, careless in his speech. He’s prone, if given the platform and the time, to talk himself into trouble, and it’s a trouble and a hole from which he’s rarely able to climb.

The reporters succeeded in getting the president to dig himself into a hole. They brought him to a place from which he could air his grievances about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which, as of late, have been mounting. They asked Trump if it was fair to him, as the president of the United States, for Jeff Sessions to have recused himself from the ongoing Russian investigations. Bitingly, Trump responded by saying that “Sessions should have never recused himself” and that, had that been the Attorney General’s intention all along, Trump would’ve “picked somebody else” to serve as the nation’s chief prosecutor. Impugning Sessions even further, Trump came quite near calling his Attorney General a traitor. He called Session’s move to recuse himself, “extremely unfair” and that a harsher word, should he be so articulate to find it, might better apply.

It’s really too bad to see Jeff Sessions treated in this way. He was, after all, Donald Trump’s earliest and most ardent supporter. This was during the time when the mere concept of a “president” Donald Trump was, at best, farfetched and, at worst, risible; him winning the presidency was thought to be impossible, chimerical, but—in the minds of most pundits—laughable. Even so, Sessions saw in the former Celebrity Apprentice some kind of inexplicable, intuitive potential that others at the time could not (or dared not). To Trump, Sessions was immediately and enduringly loyal even though, politically speaking, it benefitted the Alabama Senator little. One would think that Trump couldn’t forget such devotion so quickly. As we’ve learned, if he values nothing else (and it’s quite possible that he does value nothing else), Trump values loyalty and respect. It’s what sustains all of his relationships and strengthens all of his bonds. It’s why he invests so much of his attention into the opinions of family members and friends—neither of whom are likely to proffer intelligible advice on nuanced issues like tariffs, immigration, or budget deficits. Yet he turns to them nonetheless.

But now, even after having been assiduously and loyally devoted to Trump for well over a year, Sessions is seeing his fortunes change and his prospects diminish. He’s become a new and what I can only assume will be a persistent persona non grata in the eyes of Trump. The president went so far as to openly express to the Times his desire for a new Attorney General to replace Jeff Sessions. To besmirch Sessions’ good name still further, Trump sent out a string of Tweets, in which he aligned his Attorney General with Hillary Clinton. In his words, he complained that “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes and intel leakers” and questioned that “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – ‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G.” and finally, a day before the previous two, he wondered aloud, “why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillary’s crimes & Russia relations?”

If in fact Attorney General Sessions is beleaguered, it’s only so far as Trump is doing the beleaguering. Otherwise, in his role thus far, he’s performed creditably. Contentious though it may be, he’s helped to implement the travel ban, he’s sharpened his criticism on sanctuary cities, and he’s taken definitive steps toward addressing the opioid epidemic. All of these moves that Session’s has made are quite in line with the various measures Trump wants put in to place. So, professionally and politically, when one considers just the results, Sessions is doing fine. It’s the third “p”—personally—where he is failing. Sessions has evidently lost, and likely won’t regain, the essential gut-level personal affinity that Trump prizes most. This, in the eyes of President Trump, is the ultimate measure of a man, and to this end, Sessions appears to be falling painfully and obviously short.

I don’t want to attribute to my manner of thinking any sort of political prescience. I wouldn’t be so bold. I’m neither particularly clever nor instinctively well-versed when it comes to anticipating the goings-on in our government’s affairs. From the view outside, though, you, me, and all of us have our best guesses and our humble calculations. But, forever hidden from us are the internal machinations, the levers being pulled, and the gears greased. In the dark, we await whatever fallout comes our way. Never have I felt this more than now as we watch and react to Donald Trump’s presidency. We do so with a collective effort—futile though it may be—to, as I said, peer into an impetuous mind and glance at an infighting staff to be able to briefly see the coming controversy, pre-empt the imminent tempest, and absorb the short-fuses and the bombshells.

All that being said, of little surprise to us is White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s recent ouster. The writing has been, for quite some time, etched in indelible ink upon his wall. In the pre-noon hours on Friday morning, President Trump announced that Spicer would be relieved of his position and that Anthony Scaramucci, a man, heretofore, only loosely affiliated with the administration, would be taking the helm as the White House Communications Director. The announcement, not the decision, is said to have caught more than a few in the West Wing by surprise. It appears to be the case that, although Spicer’s leaving was inevitable, and that Scaramucci’s ascendance was forthcoming, top aides and officials weren’t kept abreast of when or how the announcement would be made. Spontaneity, they as well as we are learning, is the most enervating spice of life—one the President garnishes with a heavy hand.

Scaramucci’s arrival to the White House was in no way contingent upon Spicer’s resignation. Should Spicer have refused to go, very likely, Scaramucci would’ve fired him outright. This proved unnecessary, though, as Spicer—acting either out of deference to the President or docility to his fate—agreed to walk. In so doing, he gave to Scaramucci a “clean slate”—or, at least, as clean as slates can be. Mostly as a product of Spicer’s own doing, the Trump administration’s press office has been tarnished, perhaps irreparably so. The scars, for the most part, have been self-inflicted; they’ve come by way of confabulations, gaffes, equivocations, and lies. From shocking mistakes (such as his obstinate response to questions about the president’s inauguration crowd size, or his spurious claim that Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons) to minor snafus, the evidence of his inability added up. Spicer, simply put, was in too many ways ill-suited for the job.

As always is the case, the arrival of Scaramucci wasn’t without strife. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Advisor Steve Bannon opposed his addition to the team. So too did John Kelly and H.R. McMaster. In favor of Scaramucci’s accession to the role were Ivanka Trump, husband Jared Kushner, and Hope Hicks. It’s between these two factions, those of the tested, stalwart Republican type, like Priebus, Bannon, and Kelly, and the youthful, verdant familial type, like Trump, Kushner, and Hicks. It’s telling to see, of the two parties, which is the more influential when it comes to steering the president’s thought and directing his final decisions. For the moment, filial piety and a commitment to one’s own seems to be the guiding light and that which most informs Trump’s ideas.

But how is it that Scaramucci has caused such antipathy from the likes of Bannon, Priebus, and Kelly? To know, I suppose it’s not completely irrelevant to begin with his ostentatious nickname—self-proclaimed, so far as I know: he responds to his given name and “the Mooch”. The moneyed-moniker does have a certain appeal. He earned it, as he earned his millions, as the quintessential portrait of the modern American millionaire. He was raised a humble boy in his middle-class milieu before attending Tufts university. There, seeking an escape forevermore from economic worry, he studied money. His degree in economics in hand, he travelled south, just barely, to Harvard’s School of Law. There, as before at Tufts, he flourished and added to his mantle a most prestigious degree and embarked upon a most propitious future. The smell of the coin and sight of that fertile color green beckoned and he left Cambridge for Manhattan, Newbury Street for Wall Street. He worked first for Goldman Sachs (as so many, if not nearly every member of Trump’s administration has), before jumping to Lehman Brothers and then the famed firm, Neuberger Berman. Thence, smitten with his success in the financial sector but wanting the excitement of an independent life, he ventured out on his own and started a fund called SkyBridge Capital.

SkyBridge proved successful, as—heretofore—every one of his ventures did, but he did most of his work in obscurity. Doubtless a man of his stature, acumen, charisma, and appeal needed a broader market and in seeking a medium upon which he might splash his talents, he found himself appearing regularly on PBS and Fox News. There, he was able to polish whatever coarse edges there were on his already accomplished persona. The way in which he spoke—with all of its rapidity, prolixity, pugnacity, and deft—was perfectly tailored to a strong media presence. Add to that an attractive countenance, a meticulous coif, and an easy smile, he entailed in his swagger many of those superficial things Spicer lacked, but that the president loves.

Just as many of President Trump’s chief cabinet members were former Goldman Sachs employees (among them, Steve Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, Steve Bannon, and Dina Powell), so too were many of them Democrats. Scaramucci stands astride both circles. He was, as recently as 2012, a munificent donor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He supported them and other Democrats for quite some time before turning to the GOP. Thence, it was only through a long process of elimination that he came to support Donald Trump. In the earliest stages of the 2016 Republican campaign, Scaramucci championed Scott Walker, before later supporting Jeb Bush, only later to favor Ted Cruz, and then finally contenting his exasperation with Donald Trump.

On this point, much has been made of Scaramucci’s old (and since deleted) tweets. Not surprisingly, then, given his erstwhile and long-standing affiliation with the Democratic Party, his earlier tweets tend to lean left. Not one to be coy about his political opinions and predilections, Scaramucci called for many public reforms near and dear to a Democrat’s bleeding heart. He called with urgency for this nation to have a serious discussion on the topic of climate change, he railed against its injurious effects, he voiced his support for stricter gun control laws, and lambasted the feasibility of the Trump border wall. Nothing if not a globalist and a man open to inclusion, he advocated stronger protections for gay marriage, easier access for abortions, the admittance of more Muslims, and the benefit of multilateral, international trade.

We should prepare ourselves, then, for this interesting, invigorating character appearing on the scene. While he alone might not be able to return credibility to the White House’s damaged press department, he might just bring back to it a sense of respectability and urbanity that, in every other word and appearance of Sean Spicer, was lost.

In the case it bears repeating, the Trump administration does indeed have on its payroll an official White House Press Secretary. This would come as a surprise to anyone who, like me, has noticed lately the glaring absence of he whose job it is to deliver to our often bewildered, always curious republic the president’s passions, his intentions, his tweets, his decrees. For the past month at least, since June the 26^th, Sean Spicer, whose very job fits the foregoing terms, has been away from the podium and out of the public eye. You’ll remember him (how could you forget) as the provocative, unapologetic voice box, the incendiary, inarticulate man to whom America and the world lend a daily ear.

His long-awaited, though perhaps not eagerly-awaited, re-appearance on Monday relieved the Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, of her temporary role. Sanders met the task as admirably as she could. In a month’s work, she proved herself capable, strong, incisive, and evenly tempered. She was polished, but not effete; eristic but not pugilistic. In her character, the essence of a press secretary is exhibited well. To contrast with Spicer, Sanders is a bit more trenchant than he and a bit more politically fluent. The daughter of a Southern governor, this is in some ways to be expected. It’s as if, through her veins, the genetic imprint of a conservative flows and the red-blooded zeal of the reactionary beats. Chastened, as doubtless she is, with a cool demeanor and a thoughtful mind, she’s able to combine in her person a forceful style. It’s a style that’s more effective than Spicer’s at conveying a message to a media habitually pining for a fight or, if that’s asking too much, at the very least a combative exchange.

Spicer is wont to stumble into such reckless fights. The issue being with him, quite unlike Sanders, is that, once there, he struggles to maneuver himself free. He’s all thrust, no parry, and such a style of attack is bound to invite innumerable wounds. His idiosyncrasy—at times useful, at others, fatal—is to adhere not to the facts, but to their verisimilitude. If done surreptitiously, this style can work, if not always, then intermittently. But there’s nothing subtle in his approach and nothing inconspicuous in his delivery.

All the worse is when he makes a statement or elaborates an issue about which he is visibly ill-prepared. Such was the case when he returned to the podium yesterday. While fielding questions about Donald Trump Jr.’s earlier meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer and, potentially, a Kremlin representative and emissary, Spicer seemed woefully lacking in his grasp of the situation. Trump Jr. himself had admitted recently that the scope of his and Veselnitskaya’s conversation exceeded the topic of adoption—the putative issue about which their meeting was said to be held. Originally, this was the official explanation for their having met at Trump Tower, but it said nothing of the clandestine circumstances in which the meeting was held, and it says little more about the lengths to which the Trump administration stretched to conceal the meeting from the public’s knowledge.

It was claimed, speciously but originally, that the meeting at Trump Tower between Don Jr. and Veselnitskaya revolved around the Magnitsky Act. Enacted during the Obama administration, the Magnitsky Act was implemented as a way for Russia to retaliate against the U.S. for the commercial sanctions imposed by the latter on the former. Implemented as such, the Act’s intention was to vitiate and affectively end the process whereby American families—roiled in their infertility—could adopt Russian infants and children. Had this, in fact, been the actual reason for the meeting, many, if not all, of Trump’s sins would’ve been absolved. Such magnanimity to think of the wretched, orphaned children—not even of his own land, but that of another’s—might’ve made a saint out of Don Jr. Instead, it made him into a fallen star. With the release of a long-winded email cache, Don Jr. unwittingly conceded that the controversial Magnitsky Act, and an opportunity to mollify its terms, was not the meeting’s purpose; it was nothing more than a slipshod red herring. To further impress this fact upon our collective consciousness, Don Jr. appeared on Sean Hannity’s television program to explain his perfidy more thoroughly. In front of the cameras, Don Jr. admitted that he went to the meeting in order to gather damaging kompromat on Hillary Clinton. To him, this was promised by Veselnitskaya and a Kremlin cabal supporting her from the rear. As if this weren’t enough, and as if his imbecility needed further proof, Don Jr. admitted sheepishly that he’d not even heard of the Magnitsky Act.

As you can see, on the topic of this issue, we were unanimously if not discouragingly aware. We knew well that the Trump Tower meeting was concerned not with trans-Atlantic adoption, but with compromising material and opposition research on an American political candidate. It was a shock, therefore, when responding to a question about this imbroglio, Spicer claimed in all seriousness that “there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for discussion about adoption” when the Trump Tower meeting took place. Had he really just said this? We might’ve hoped that Spicer was merely and innocently committing a sin of commission—an instance of superfluity when words are added when not needed. Surely, he intended in his remark to omit the words, “anything except for”.

This, however, seems not to be the case. He was neither misquoted nor misrepresented. Instead, in saying what he did, Spicer was continuing and giving credence to Don Jr.’s earliest deceit—a deceit, mind you, thoroughly debunked, undeserving of our time, and discredited by the President himself who said that anyone would take the chance to attend such a meeting under similar circumstances if opposition research was to be had.

Naturally and rather sadly, we’re resigned in our assessment of Spicer to two conclusions: one is that Spicer, the White House Press Secretary and the man to whom a nation turns for its dose, too often unfilled, of credible, veridical, and essential information is either uninformed is unconvinced. Be it the former, he can be improved; be it the latter, he’s too far removed. Maybe the administration and the people need just that—for Sean Spicer to be removed.

Tis strange but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction: if it could be told, how much would novels gain by the exchange! How differently the world would men behold!

Indeed, what a different world we behold during this extraordinarily abnormal time in American politics. Lord Byron’s words encapsulate the latest and greatest snafu to envelope the White House, almost to the point of aphoristic perfection. A narrative has developed in the Russian campaign hacking imbroglio that exceeds the bounds of imagination. Even a most eminent writer of fiction, say, a Tolstoy, Nabokov, or Dostoevsky, would be pressed to his creative precipice in the casting of a tale the likes of which we see playing out before our eyes.

The Russian hacking scandal has been an undulating tale, but limpid dots have revealed themselves for our connecting. As it stands, the long and short of this story is that there is no long and short. It’s an implausible tale that doesn’t lend itself to brevity.

This most recent chapter of the Trump-Russia story was written over the weekend, with President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., casting an indelible mark on the page. During a vertiginous seventy-two hours, Trump Jr., who first claimed in March not to have ever met with Russians while working as a representative for his father’s campaign, contradicted himself by conceding just the opposite. As it’s come to be, Trump Jr. met with a Russian representative in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York.

His cursory and specious explanation for the meeting was that the involved parties were convening to discuss a policy proscribing the adoption of Russian children in the US. This is a little-known ban Vladimir Putin enacted in response to President Obama’s injurious “Magnitsky Act”. The “Magnitsky Act” sought to seize assets and deny visas to putative Russian human rights abusers, a group of misanthropes quite populous in Moscow. It was a retributive, bipartisan bill enacted in response to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian attorney and whistleblower, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 under suspect conditions.

Finally, on Sunday, after far too many teeth had been pulled for even a toothless grin to be left intact, Trump Jr. conceded that his meeting with the Russian representative was not concerned with the adoption ban. Rather, he met with a Russian lawyer in his Trump Tower office on the twenty-fifth floor to discuss potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

By circumstances yet unknown, The New York Times was able to ascertain this juicy penetralia from someone who must have been uniquely intimate with the scenario. The Times gathered Trump Jr.’s e-mail chain, but deferentially provided him the opportunity to comment before its imminent release. Sensing his grip quickly losing hold of the narrative, Trump Jr. decided to pre-empt the Times by releasing his e-mail cache on Twitter holus bolus. The e-mail salvo was self-initiated but was never likely to obviate him from self-incrimination.

Consequently, many have questioned why he did this voluntarily. His options were undeniably limited; The New York Times had forced his hand, making the days of playing innocently costive impracticable. Others, although representing an admittedly small and dwindling subset of people, have lauded Trump Jr. for his lionheartedness in coming clean. Like I said, had he not, the Times would have.

This leads us to the contents of Trump Jr.’s e-mail exchange. It was not Trump Jr., but an old chum from the bygone Miss Universe days who set in motion these wheels currently hurtling off the track. The poor bloke’s name is Rob Goldstone. Once a marginal and obscure fellow, Goldstone now finds himself in the crux of the tumult. He is a corpulent British tabloid writer and music publicist fond of whimsical displays on YouTube and Instagram. Goldstone is an intriguing figure because, at first glance, he doesn’t appear nefarious in the least. His e-mail correspondence with Trump Jr. were padded with cordiality and general bonhomie. This is not to mitigate his complicity in the whole affair, but to clearly delineate him as an intermediary, or a go-between of sorts.

Goldstone represents Russian “pop star” Emin Agalarov, who is the scion son of the billionaire real estate investor, Aras Agalarov. In Russia’s hospitality industry, Aras is considered Moscow’s version of “Donald Trump”, flaunting grandiose hotels and properties of his own. The two businessmen have an affable history. At one point, not very long ago in fact, the paternal Trump and Agalarov were in discussions over the feasibility of erecting a Trump Tower in Moscow. The project was intended to be the object of Donald Jr.’s oversight (Melania had even flown to Moscow to scout out proposed building sites) but the whole thing was put on ice when Trump unexpectedly succeeded with his presidential ambition.

On June 3, 2016, Goldstone sent this e-mail to Trump Jr., “The crown prosecutor of Russia…offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia…This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”.

Trump Jr. hastily responded, saying, “I love it…especially later in the summer”. Later in the summer, of course, implied a time nearer the presidential election in the autumn. This would be the moment when inclement exposure about Clinton would be of the greatest utility for the Trump campaign.

A few days later, Goldstone responded by saying that Emin wanted to coordinate a meeting between Trump Jr. and a “Russian government attorney”. This last phrase is what has caused an uproar. Assuming Goldstone did not misrepresent the intended person Trump Jr. was to receive, this Russian attorney would have acted illegally as an unregistered foreign agent attempting to offer information about a political opponent. If this attorney did in fact represent the Russian government, it would be crucial substantiation for Russia’s subversive intentions. It would also conclude Trump Jr.’s willingness to collude directly with the Kremlin.

The alleged “Russian government attorney” was quickly identified as Natalia Veselnitskaya. I know it’s a symptom of language and too many Hollywood flicks, but each new Russian name we come to know in the Trump saga feels increasingly dastardly and villainous. Through no fault of her own, Veselnitskaya’s name is no exception.

Veselnitskaya was quick to denounce any inkling of a Kremlin connection that was quite eagerly explicated and later iterated in Goldstone’s e-mail chain. In a most sympathetic assessment, her loyalties are amorphous. It’s not entirely provable if she has immediate connections to the Kremlin and is working at their behest. It could be that she’s a Russian cut out—someone tenebrously and loosely working for the government but capable of distancing herself if the situation warranted a to be placed wedge between her and the Kremlin.

The meeting’s attendees included not only Trump Jr., Goldstone, and Veselnitskaya, but also Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort. As of today, it has also been revealed that a gentleman named Rinat Akhmetshin was in the audience as well, along with two other attendees whose identities are yet to have been disclosed.

It’s improbable that the meeting’s entrails will come entirely into view, but lusting over this potentiality is a guiltless indulgence. Trump Jr. declaimed the meeting as being quite inutile and a waste of his time. Veselnitskaya echoed her counterpart’s claim, recounting that Kushner and Manafort were aloof and uninterested in what fruits she came to bear. One must bear in mind that all of the attendees have a stake in downplaying the meeting’s significance. Being that all of these people played for the same side during the campaign, one shouldn’t expect any of the aforementioned people to deviate from a narrative that is the least damning, even if it is the least truthful.

Conclusions must be drawn, however, and some are unavoidable. What is beyond dispute is that, prima facie, Trump Jr. was eager to invite collusion, rather blatantly and facilely with a foreign emissary in the hope of benefitting his father’s efforts. One can ascribe to him the label, “political naïf” or any other exculpatory term a man inexperienced and suffering pratfalls might deserve, but one can’t argue his odiously un-American motivations. Questions of criminality have arisen, but Trump Jr. did not commit a felonious act. Legal pundits are examining Trump Jr.’s claim that the conference was little more than your run-of-the-mill political opposition research. If this rationalization is to be accepted, the latitude with which the phrase was once understood requires stretching.

The situation is redolent with the vapors of collusion, but that doesn’t immediately implicate him criminally. The urge to mirandize him is understandably strong, but altogether premature. Trump Jr., for all the irreparable damage he has done, might still have a legal leg to stand on. It is a common practice for nearly all political candidates to conduct this type of political opposition research, but to do so with the unsolicited assistance from a foreign government agent is surely outré. Additionally, the Trump Jr.’s meeting does not instantiate that the Trump campaign ultimately colluded. So long as all parties persist with the claim that the meeting was nugatory (and assuming no other revelations are made), the issue can’t be prosecuted much further beyond its present place.

The lacuna in need of filling is an account of what happened after the meeting. If it is proved that an agreement was forged between Veselnitskaya and the Trump campaign to move forward cohesively against Clinton, an unprecedented and ignominious act of collusion occurred and the election’s legitimacy can be legitimately questioned. This would come at a time when the Left’s epithets, “illegitimate president” and “not my president” have begun becoming increasingly shopworn after a year’s absence of support. If this was just a one-off without follow through, the epithets might remain flaccid.

The situation snickers with another puzzling knot to be untangled. Aside from the unlikely scenario that there were no subsequent attempts at coordination between Trump Jr. and his Russian counterparts, how is it to be believed that President Trump only learned of this whole fiasco mere days ago? Contrary to Corey Lewandowski’s claim that then-candidate Trump was in Florida at the time of the meeting, Trump, in actuality, was in his eponymous tower on the very same day. Trump’s lawyers stated they learned of the June 2016 meeting only three weeks ago, while Trump learned of it a few days ago. This means one of three scenarios is at play. In order of ascending likelihood, they are that Trump’s lawyers deliberately withheld the fact that his son held a meeting with Russian government representatives on the topic of potentially damaging Clinton information from him (something he would’ve salivated to receive); or Trump is lying, an expectancy most have grown accustomed to, and he knew about the 2016 meeting earlier than a few days ago; or that President Trump has known about this meeting all along since the summer of 2016.

Donald Trump is famously devoted to his family and close associates, and his style of filial piety is militantly reciprocated by those who he holds closest. The idea that Trump Jr. withheld this information from his father for more than a calendar year is pure bunk. Neglecting the fact that they (Trump and Trump Jr.) were in the same building on different floors the day of the meeting, the president had undoubtedly become privy to the information quickly after the meeting. In the Trump family, however, blood is thicker than water. This holds true even when the water is rising uncomfortably high and threatening a death by drowning. Trump Jr. still enjoys his father’s aegis, but the course forward will not be smooth.

The question overarching this all is whether or not Trump Jr’s peccadillo will succeed in finally pulling the presidential legs from under his paterfamilias. It’s far too soon to say, but Junior’s disclosure certainly weakens the administration’s crepitus knees. This comes at a time when the cabinet’s importunate “witch hunt” repudiations were beginning to wax in believability. In the midst of the Democratic Party’s annus horribilis, a year in which gubernatorial, congressional, and presidential losses galore have made many an ego sore, opportunities for a death blow to Trump’s legitimacy have been desperately sought after but unfulfilled. This very well may be the cascade that begins sinking the ship.

At long last, Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have been formally acquainted. They stole away, quietly but convivially, to a small alcove in Hamburg, Germany. There, hidden in plain sight at the city’s G 20 Summit—an event during which the world’s foremost economies and dignitaries converge to rub elbows—they talked for well over two-hours. Slightly exceeding the meeting’s original thirty-minute time allotment, it appears the two men (joined by their respective secretaries of state and interpreters—though Putin’s English is fluent, if not refined, despite his best efforts to deceive) had many issues to broach and controversies to quell.

Since the moment the meeting adjourned, the nature of these issues has been everyone’s nagging interest and best guess. Knowing this, and knowing that his conversation with Putin would be immediately scrutinized, globally publicized, and quickly politicized, Trump made absolutely sure to address the most important point. That, of course, would be the nettlesome and unrelenting question of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 Presidential campaign. However incontrovertible the evidence of this is, Trump is loath to consider it as a consequential thing, let alone one that’s real; he’s shown on many occasions his strong aversion to the subject and the importunate journalists who dare bring it up. But, if America’s fragile peace of mind is to be salvaged and its confidence restored, with Putin, he needed to lay the issue bare and press his interlocutor a bit.

To our collective relief, we’re told that is precisely what Trump did. Via tweet, President Trump assured us that he pressed Mr. Putin “twice”, in the strongest of terms, to which the Russian president replied with a vehement denial. Apparently, this was quite sufficient for our president. He went on to reiterate his opinion, as it pertains to Russia’s alleged meddling (you’ll recall, his “opinion” is that shadowy Chinese henchmen or obese, crinose men in their bedrooms perpetrated the electoral assault). This is disquieting for two reasons: the first, as we’ve known for some time, the American intelligence sector—unanimously, credibly, and confidently—has come forth in saying that Russia, in fact, is the sole culprit, not the Chinese or some nameless chubby hacker abroad. The second is that President Trump, a man uniquely privy to unsurpassed American intel from the CIA, FBI, NSA and so on, refuses to belief that which he alone has access to. This, I think, goes a step beyond his wont egotism and his stubborn pertinacity. It shows, frighteningly, a man willfully credulous and disinclined to believe his intelligence community.

Perhaps this is too harsh a reading, but there’s no other lens through which it can be seen. Putin professed before Russian state media that Trump believed his denial outright. This, coming from a man groomed in the KGB to chicane and mislead at every available turn; his whole political career is grounded upon his subtle, mendacious ability to contort, beguile, and deceive. To Putin’s claim, Trump gave no response and the silence resounded as it so aphoristically does. The White House offered no rebuttal to Putin’s remark, at least not until Chief of Staff Reince Priebus did so, tepidly, days later. He tried claiming, contrary to what the president had just said, that he didn’t actually believe Putin’s denial. This, we’re seeing, is the administration’s feeble attempt to suffocate a fire that’s already been set free. Our president, the man sworn to protect our jewel of a country from assailants domestic and foreign, sides not with the sober candor of our intelligence community, but with the habitual lying, the inveterate enmity, and the roguish mendacity of a one Vladimir Putin.