Indeed, just as factions of the president’s party turned on him Thursday, the latest development in the unfolding Russia saga emerged via The Wall Street Journal, which offered the first potential evidence of what might be called collusion between associates of the Trump campaign and Moscow. According to the Journal, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain e-mails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server, likely by Russian hackers. U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of stealing e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and handing them to WikiLeaks as part of its attempt to discredit the Democratic candidate, and thus support Trump. Incidentally, in July, Trump publicly encouraged Russia to look further, and locate Clinton’s “e-mails that are missing.” Asked for clarification on this matter Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted this was just another bona fide example of Trumpian banter.

According to the Journal, the G.O.P. operative, Peter W. Smith, may have been working with Mike Flynn who, at the time was a senior adviser to then-candidate Trump and was later fired for lying about his contact with Russian officials. In an interview with the paper, Smith said he and his colleagues had located five groups of hackers who claimed to possess Clinton’s deleted e-mails, including two groups that are believed to be Russian. “We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government,” he said.

The operation Smith described seems to fit with information reportedly obtained by U.S. investigators, who have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to get hold of e-mails from Clinton’s server, and then transmit them to Flynn via an intermediary.

Computer security expert Eric York, who searched hacker forums on Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the e-mails, told the Journal that Smith said: “I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?” E-mails from Smith and one of his associates show the group he was working with thought of Flynn, and his consulting company, Flynn Intel Group, as allies in their quest.

It is not clear if Flynn played a part in Smith’s project. He didn’t respond to the paper’s requests for comment, and Smith died roughly 10 days after the interview. A Trump campaign official said that Smith didn’t work for the campaign, and that if Flynn did coordinate with him, it was as a private individual. The White House declined to comment.

Day after day, as similar reports continue to emerge, Trump remains desperate to remove himself from the reach of the investigation. But this latest twist gives it yet another gasp of oxygen, just ahead of his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Germany next week, where the international media will be scrambling to decode the murky relationship between the two leaders, which, every day, somehow remains inscrutable.

It is Trump’s entanglement with Russia, not his flagrant sexism, that poses the greatest threat to his presidency, but the two are linked. The Russia probe, and the hanging accusations of obstruction of justice, come accompanied by calls for impeachment. This is where internal party support becomes important. Impeachment is largely a political, not a legal process, meaning Trump’s own party would have to vote on his removal from office. History suggests that, despite the party members’ grievances, this is exceedingly unlikely. Doing so would be to admit their complicity in bringing a leader as inept and warped as Trump to office. Publicly, then, their anger at his latest remarks, and boiling frustrations at being left with an inability to efficiently engage in the act of governing, will circulate on social media and within the press, but are unlikely to have a meaningful effect.

Trump’s dislike of women was not born on Thursday. He made it explicitly clear when campaigning against Clinton. While the existence of the Comey tapes were merely hinted at, the tapes recording his lewd bragging about using his fame for sexual advancement are all too real. The president’s attack on Brzezinski should, depressingly, come as a surprise to no one. And it will come as no surprise either that, despite mounting irritation within the Republican Party, Trump’s key players won’t step too far out of line for fear of being accused of another type of collusion. Misogyny? Being in cahoots with Russia? Well, to quote Trump, apparently “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”