On both Tuesday and Wednesday, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether there were any other meetings with Russians — in light of Donald Trump Jr.'s emails about meeting with a Russian lawyer. Her answers were the same as Lotter's initial one — basically a noncommittal shrug.

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“There's nothing that I'm aware of at this time,” she said Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday: “Not that I’m aware of.”

Part of the reason for that is undoubtedly caution. The White House has been caught too many times denying contacts with Russians, only to have those denials blow up in their faces. Lotter explained Thursday that he was just being cautious with his denials the previous day; Huckabee Sanders may be doing the same thing.

But the fact that the White House hasn't nailed down every possible meeting at this point is a dereliction of duty. Any crisis communications consultant would tell you that, when you face a situation like this, you need to do an inventory of everything that could be used against you — everything that could draw out the story and make you look like you have something to hide.

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The White House, though, keeps succumbing to a drip, drip, drip of bad news. There were the secretive Michael Flynn talks with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's failure to disclose meetings with Kislyak and a Russian banker and apparent efforts to set up a back channel with the Kremlin, Trump Jr.'s failure to disclose his meeting with the Russian lawyer, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions's failure to disclose his meetings with Kislyak in both testimony and on his security forms. (The full timeline is here, courtesy of Philip Bump.)

Each time, the contacts were first reported by the media and apparently caught the White House flat-footed. Often, especially with Flynn and Trump Jr., its initial explanations of the meetings quickly fell apart.

This, as I've often said, suggests one of two things: Either a complete failure to have their house in order, or dishonesty — Adam Carolla's “Stupid or Liar” theory. The fact that it could still be the former, so many months later, is getting more and more difficult to believe. How could the White House not have done an inventory of Pence's or Trump Jr.'s potential Russian contacts over the past five months? How can Huckabee Sanders not rule out more potential meetings?

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Pressed on this “plague of amnesia” that has characterized these meetings, Huckabee Sanders assured us Wednesday that the White House is trying. “Every time a question is asked, we give you the best information that we have, and try to give you as full and accurate information as possible at all times,” she said. But it sure doesn't seem like it.

I think Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said it best in an interview with “CBS Evening News” on Wednesday.

“You should get everyone in a room, and from the moment you watched either 'Dr. Zhivago' or read 'Brothers Karamazov' to the point you had a shot of liquor with a guy in a furry hat, you need to disclose every contact you have ever had with Russia,” Gowdy said.