Returning from Europe last weekend, White House aides had hoped to spin Donald Trump’s divisive meeting with President Vladimir Putin as a turning point for an administration whose agenda has been overshadowed by allegations of campaign collusion with Russia. “Let’s talk about how to move forward,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the press on Friday, explaining that Trump had raised the issue of Russian election interference but was prepared to move on as partners in the war on terror and, improbably, on cybersecurity. “The question is, what do we do now?”

Instead, as the U.S. delegation flew back to Washington on Saturday, Trump’s inner circle reportedly found themselves huddled in the back of Air Force One, crafting a statement for Donald Trump Jr. to give to The New York Times, explaining why he had met with Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June. According to people with knowledge of the discussion, the airborne group debated how transparent the statement should be, according to the Times’ Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker.

Not very, as it turned out.

The president signed off on a sparse statement that claimed the meeting was primarily focused on the issue of U.S.-Russian adoption—an explanation that had to be amended as the Times raced forward with a series of follow-up reports revealing that not only had Trump Jr. been promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, but that he knew the information was said to come explicitly from the Russian government. Seeking to get ahead of the story, the president’s son on Tuesday released four pages of communications with Rob Goldstone, the intermediary who brokered the meeting with Veselnitskaya. In the e-mails, Goldstone says that the lawyer has negative information about Clinton that is part of the Russian government’s efforts to bolster Trump’s campaign. Trump Jr. responded with unfortunate enthusiasm: “I love it.”

Blindsided staffers were reportedly in panic mode after the latest revelation, which appears to substantiate some of the worst fears about the Trump campaign’s unsavory relationship with Russia. Many people within the White House had dismissed the Trump-Russia affair as “conspiracy bullshit,” one Trump adviser told Politico. Now, aides are “essentially helpless” to contain the fallout from a story that has its origins in the heady “anything goes” days of the campaign. Members of Trump’s inner circle are reportedly filled with paranoia and suspicion over the identities of the “three advisers to the White House” who were the sources for the blockbuster Times story.

On Capitol Hill, the Republican legislative agenda has once again been sidelined by the Kremlingate melodrama. Trump has encouraged senators to complete their work on health-care reform this summer, and thus fulfill a party promise to voters, but as Russia saturates the national narrative, there is mounting concern they will have nothing to offer their constituents when they return home. One outside Republican ally called the story a “Category 5 hurricane,” according to The Washington Post. Lee Zeldin, the Republican representative from New York who called Trump Jr.’s meeting a “nothing burger” in a tweet Monday, abruptly reversed course. “I voted for @POTUS last Nov & want him and ISA to succeed, but that meeting, given that email chain just released, is a big no-no.”