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Americans have seen through the smoke surrounding Russian interference in the 2016 election and there is fire, leaping flames that President Trump and his minions can no longer extinguish with their denials.

In June, 2016, President Trump’s eldest son received an email from a business associate saying that a top Russian government official was offering dirt to "incriminate" Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Donald Trump Jr. sounded giddy upon learning that a hostile foreign power wanted to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer," he emailed in reply. Trump Jr. agreed to a meeting at New York’s Trump Tower on June 9 with someone described as a “Russian government attorney.” The meeting also included then campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a senior White House adviser.

Did Donald Trump Jr. commit a crime by planning to meet with a “Russian government attorney” for the purpose of obtaining dirt on his father’s opponent? Federal law prohibits soliciting or accepting a campaign contribution or any “other thing of value” from a foreign national. Dirt on Clinton was certainly a thing of value to Republicans. Whether the campaign crossed a legal line we’ll leave for special counsel Robert Mueller and the courts to sort out.

But this much is evident: The Trump campaign, at the highest levels, was willing to let a hostile foreign power interfere in a U.S. election to help Trump win. That is exactly the betrayal of American independence the Founders feared.

And while we’ve now seen, in Donald Trump Jr.’s own words, how far the campaign was willing to go to win, it’s tough to take his word or that of the lawyer, who denies working for the Russian government, about what transpired. For starters, Trump Jr.’s stories shifted over the weekend. When The New York Times broke the story Saturday, Trump Jr. said the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was about a Russian adoption program, popular with Americans, that was shut down by the Russian government. By Sunday, when other sources said the meeting involved the promise of derogatory information on Clinton, Trump Jr. suddenly acknowledged that the lawyer had indeed offered such information but said it turned out to be “vague, ambiguous and made no sense.”

No matter what happened there is no getting away from the fact that the younger Trump, Kushner and Manafort met with someone they thought was a Russian emissary on the promise of foreign help in the election. That their effort allegedly failed is no excuse for having launched it in the first place. And the Trump administration's reckless disregard for the truth gives ample reason to doubt their account.

What should the younger Trump have done upon receiving the Russian offer? The same thing former Democratic congressman Thomas Downey did when he was working with Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and received a package containing a videotape of George W. Bush’s debate practice sessions and other confidential material. He turned all of it over to the FBI.

The Trump White House likes to shield itself from charges of wrongdoing with a veneer of bumbling incompetence.

Now, it expects the world to believe that the president’s son, the man he put in charge of his business empire, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of his closest advisers and the man he put in charge of Middle East peace, knew since June 2016 of a secret Russian campaign to sway the election, met with a Russian lawyer and never bothered to mention it to the president. They stayed quiet even as two congressional committees and a special counsel investigated whether the campaign colluded with the Russians. And even as President Trump repeatedly wrote off Russian interference as “fake news” and a Democratic Party myth to explain its election loss.

That is too preposterous even for this White House.

Now we know part of the sad truth. The chain of emails Trump Jr. revealed Tuesday provides evidence that the Russian government wanted to sway the election to Trump and that some in Trump’s inner circle were willing to accept that help. We do not yet know what the president knew about their efforts and whether the Trump campaign effort to collude with America's enemies continued during the remainder of the campaign.

We do, however, have a perfectly clear picture of Trump family priorities: Winning — at business and politics — beats patriotism every time.

USA TODAY offered the Trump administration an opportunity to write an "Opposing View" to appear with this editorial. The White House referred the matter to Donald Trump Jr.'s attorney who did not respond to the request.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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