The emails that Donald Trump Jr. released to the public on Tuesday have shattered the illusions of Trump allies and foes like, many of whom couldn’t imagine that even a heedlessly corrupt individual like Donald Trump would run an organization with such impunity that its leaders would connive in private with representatives of the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Now we know that not only were campaign aides willing to conspire with Russian intelligence to subvert the election, they salivated at the thought.

In the immediate term, the effect of the revelation has been to change the way members of the public (including some Republicans, presumably) perceive both the scandal and the importance of the investigations into it. Trump never deserved the benefit of the doubt, but it will be more widely withheld going forward at every point of dispute in the story. And rightly so.



But it is just as important that interested players in the Russia-Trump story account for how their incorrect assumptions affected their conduct over the past year. It is striking to look back at defining moments of the campaign and of Trump’s fledgling presidency through the lens of hindsight. Some of the most powerful people in the world made history altering decisions on the basis—at best—of exceedingly naive justifications.

Chief among these people were the Republican leaders of the House and Senate. Trump and his advisers didn’t just lie to the public, but to his partisan allies as well. The most charitable read of the GOP leadership’s behavior is that they believed Trump’s lies and proceeded accordingly. Now that they know they were misled, we need to know what they intend to do about it.