Former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort

The Wall Street Journal brings yet another confirmation that Donald Trump and his "associates" have been on the U.S. intelligence radar for some time now.

U.S. intelligence agencies starting in the spring of 2015 detected conversations in which Russian government officials discussed associates of Donald Trump, several months before he declared his candidacy for president, according to current and former U.S. officials. In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.

Trump's team weren't the target of the intelligence efforts, but were gathered “by intelligence agencies that routinely monitor Russian espionage” against the United States. But apparently the new confirmation of a direct attempt by Trump's team to solicit Russian government assistance in the campaign is causing analysts to look at those 2015 conversations in a new light. And that's not all:

Then, in the spring of 2016, U.S. intelligence officials’ suspicions about Russian meddling in the election grew after their counterparts in Europe warned that Russian money might be flowing into the presidential election, according to officials with knowledge of the warning. It remains unknown if or whether those funds were funneled to a particular campaign or to others to spend it on behalf of candidates.

We once presumed the possibility that Russian cash might have been funneled to preferred U.S. campaigns to be farfetched. Given everything else we know, it's no longer implausible. Donald Jr. didn’t change his story three times in three days for no reason; the White House’s own efforts to pin blame on Donald Jr. despite the involvement of Kushner, Manafort, and possibly the elder Trump himself aren’t happening because they believe the Trump Jr. revelations to be the last of it.