They used to say there were no contacts with Russians, period. Then they said there were contacts, but the Americans involved were low-level nobodies on the campaign. Then they admitted there was a meeting at Trump Tower between the campaign manager, the president's son, his son-in-law, and some Russians, but that it was about "adoptions" and the president didn't know about it. Now, as of this past weekend, the president admits what we all knew a year ago: the Russians specifically promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, which is why the meeting happened.

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Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere. I did not know about it! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018

Lock up my wonderful son, Donald, if you must! I had nothing to do with it! And we didn't get anything! And it was all legal and happens all the time!

As usual, the president occupies that area where Covering His Bases becomes He Doth Protest Too Much. (Also, who had Summer '18 in the betting on how long it would take him to throw his own son under the bus?) If the meeting was totally above-board, as they still say, why have they lied about every single aspect of it, at every stage?

Looking forward, why would anyone believe anything the Trump folks say about the meeting from here on out? Trump is still pushing the longtime Trumpworld tale that they got nothing out of the meeting—as if you could break into a bank vault and, if it's empty, the cops would just shake your hand and send you home. Trump is here admitting, in public, to an attempted conspiracy with agents of a hostile foreign power. But even if you take the president's line that an attempted crime is not a crime, there is no reason to believe him when he says it was only attempted.

Again: they have lied about every aspect of the meeting, from its very existence, to who was there, to why they attended. Why wouldn't they lie about what they got out of it, too?

John Moore Getty Images

The same goes for the line that Trump did not know of (and thus approve) the meeting in advance. First off, it seems unlikely that Junior—who has lived his whole life in doomed pursuit of his father's approval—would not tell Trump the Elder about his big play to Get the Dirt. But even leaving that aside, this claim rests on the full faith and credit of Donald J. Trump, American president. That is to say, it's based on nothing. Meanwhile, his longtime fixer Michael Cohen—whose word ain't exactly bond, either—has signaled his willingness to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance. Crucially, Cohen would make that claim under penalty of perjury. For now, Trump refuses to sit for an interview with Mueller.

Certainly, there's no reason to take the Trumpworld line on faith. We've known for over a year that Junior was fully aware that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was offering dirt, and that it came from the Russian government as part of that government's support for Donald Trump's campaign. We learned this when Junior tweeted out his own emails with bizarro music publicist Rob Goldstone, in which Goldstone told Junior all this. Junior's response? "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” (Like his father, Don Jr. seems to think that if you just make something public yourself, it's not as bad. There's some truth to that politically. Not so legally.)

Yet even since then, we've occasionally heard the "adoption" line. That's actually related to the Magnitsky Act, a set of sanctions against Russian oligarchs that Vladimir Putin (and Veselnitskaya) are desperate to get repealed, so it's not even exculpatory. The subtext is that the Russians were seeking sanctions repeal in exchange for their election meddling help. It's like Trump and his associates are running a number of fabrication schemes simultaneously in an attempt to make the whole thing an inscrutable mess.

Speaking of adoptions and lies, we had another revelation recently: that when the Trump Tower meeting came to light, Trump the Elder himself dictated his son's statement in response claiming the meeting was about adoption. We know this because Trump's lawyers admitted it in a letter to the special counsel. This, after Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow and Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on at least five different occasions that Trump did not dictate the statement. Sekulow joined This Week with George Stephanopoulos Sunday and was made to answer for yet another set of falsehoods:

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Jay Sekulow now trying to clean up his previous denials that Trump was involved in putting out a statement on the Trump Tower meeting, seems to imply someone misled him. "I had bad information at that time and made a mistake ... over time facts develop." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/ELPCEDO2Ch — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 5, 2018

Facts develop is a summary statement of the Trump administration's attitude towards reality. By "develop," they mean "become whatever is most useful to as at this point, regardless of truth value." The question, as usual, is whether Sekulow was given bad information or cooked it up himself. Certainly, we'll be served a lot more of it before all this is over. How long until we learn that, Yes, the president approved the meeting in advance, but collusion to own the libs is good? This is already accepted among the kind of people who still show their face at one of his rallies—just look at these guys.

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We have to respect their economic anxiety. pic.twitter.com/JYaoSHzMu3 — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 6, 2018

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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