Sunday's revelation that Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer last year with the explicit hope of scoring some dirt on then-candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a fresh measure of gasoline on the Trump's administration's weekend-long, self-induced Russia conflagration.

The younger Trump's shifting explanations for the meeting came in the wake of the elder Trump's extended confab with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, the upshot of which was, at best, an extended round of ridicule for the self-proclaimed great negotiator and, at worst, more evidence that – "make America great again" rhetoric notwithstanding – he's capitulating to a geopolitical adversary.

The hot news of the moment is Trump Jr. As The New York Times reported Sunday:

President Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

And for those prepared to decry this as "fake news," understand that Trump the younger confirmed the meeting and its purpose, according to a statement he released:

After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.

He went on to bemoan the woman's "true agenda," repealing the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law which blacklisted Russians suspected of being involved in human rights abuses. "[T]he claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting," he said.

Keep in mind that this is his official explanation and defense: Yes, he was meeting with a Russian lawyer to gather dirt on his opponent, but he was himself being duped because she had an ulterior motive. (Someone might want to inform Junior that it's illegal for a foreign national to provide "substantial assistance" to a U.S. political campaign and for someone on that campaign to solicit it.)

For perspective, here's 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's top strategist on the matter:

When Gore campaign was sent Bush debate brief book, they called FBI. If foreign interests offer you info on former SOS, you call the FBI. — stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) July 10, 2017

And here's deputy Romney campaign manager (now a contributing editor with U.S. News) Katie Packer Beeson making a similar point:

From experience: when working on a Presidential campaign & are contacted by a foreigner, prudent to mention it to 1)your FoPo team 2)FBI — Katie Packer Beeson (@katiepack) July 10, 2017

Note too that this was Trump Jr.'s second explanation in as many days. When news of the meeting first broke on Saturday, he described it as being about Russian adoption policies. (Putin had responded to the Magnitsky Act by freezing U.S. adoptions of children from his country.) Then he changed his tune Sunday to admit what the meeting was really about. Of course there's also this, from the same story: "But in an interview with The Times in March, he denied participating in any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals. 'Did I meet with people that were Russian? I'm sure, I'm sure I did,' he said. 'But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly none that I was representing the campaign in any way.'" So there is no reason, in other words, to believe the details of Little Don's explanation, given that he's proven himself a ready prevaricator.

This takes a chunk out of the administration's "no collusion" talking point; we now know that Team Trump was at minimum willing to listen to Russian offers of assistance. As the Times notes, "The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help." (Fear not, Trump fans, the president's defenders have already signaled their next line of defense, that collusion is not a crime; for what it's worth, they're wrong.)

And while such counterfactuals will grow old at some point, it's worth noting what conservative commentator (and U.S. News opinion contributor) Ashley Pratte tweeted this morning:

Can we all recognize that if HRC were elected and Chelsea met with a Russian lawyer for damning oppo, GOPers would be going nuts. 🤦🏻‍♀️ — Ashley Pratte (@AshPratte) July 10, 2017

But the son's flailing was arguably not even the biggest story of the weekend: After all, it could conceivably actually go no further than the one meeting. The father's floundering, on the other hand, further illustrates a broader and inarguably sinister trend that directly affects our national security and our political system: The president of the United States continues in his ham-handed determination to surrender in the face of Russian aggression.

Start with Trump's hours-long meeting Friday with Putin. If you take at face value his and his aides' descriptions of the meeting, he "strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election," as Trump tweeted Sunday. "He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion…." The opinion he's expressed is that probably Russia was one of several countries involved, but "nobody really knows." That's directly at odds with the assessment of the relevant members of the intelligence community, who have placed blame for the cyberattacks unequivocally with Russia.

And more, Trump frames the whole issue as some sort of academic argument: I've given my opinion, Putin's given his, who knows who's right? Let's just move on. Or as Trump put in in a subsequent tweet: "Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!"

But it's not an abstract argument or interesting historical debate. We're not debating Amelia Earhart's fate here. A foreign adversary conducted a sweeping, long-term and well-resourced operation, aimed at undermining our political system. The only serious people who doubt that adversary was Russia are named Trump (which arguably means that no serious people believe it).

And no one who has paid attention thinks that this will be a one-shot deal; there's every reason to believe that they're going to come back and do it again and again. Are we preparing for that? Not so much.

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Why would Russia not hit us again? They achieved their aims, including their preferred candidate winning the election. And that candidate has responded by doing everything he can to "move forward" without consequences for Russia. As homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem put it bluntly on CNN Sunday, "President Trump's behavior now is enabling Putin ... for 2018 midterms and the 2020 re-elect. There's just no question about it."

Indeed, Trump announced the formation with Russia of a joint "impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded." Well yes, I suppose if you want to guard hacking, forming a joint task force with Russia would be the way to do it. This would be like inviting the arsonists who set your house ablaze onto a fire security commission. And yet, as of Sunday morning, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was on ABC's "This Week," calling the development "a very significant accomplishment."

Not so fast. The idea drew so much ridicule that even Trump had the self-awareness to run away from it, in typically semicoherent fashion:

The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2017

What's left of the Trump administration's response to Russian hacking? Very little beyond Trump's obsessive condemnation of President Barack Obama's handling of an attack he, Trump, isn't sure happened. Trump wanted "to basically look [Putin] in the eye, let him know that yes, we know you meddled in our elections," Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on CNN Sunday. "Yes we know you did it, cut it out." That's exactly what Obama told the Russian president last September at another G-20 meeting. But despite Trump's repeated assertion that Obama did nothing in the face of Russian aggression, the 44th president did take other measures to counter the Russia cyberattack. Could he have done more? Certainly.