For months, the story of possible collusion of the Donald Trump election team with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton lacked an essential ingredient.
While there was proof of meetings between the two sides, there was no evidence that any election scheming took place. It allowed the White House to dismiss the collusion allegations as a media-fabricated "nothing burger."
But the nothing burger just got a big chunk of fresh ground beef. It came with the revelation that Donald Trump Jr. and other top players met last year with a Russian lawyer who promised them damaging information on Ms. Clinton. The meeting makes it appear the Trump team was willing to engage with the Russians for political gain. It provides a shot of credibility to a story with potentially devastating consequences for the Trump White House.
Read more: Trump and Russia: A guide to the many investigations into 2016's election-meddling
Donald Trump Jr. initially tried to dodge the truth about the meeting last June with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. When first approached by The New York Times, he said the meeting was about U.S. adoptions of Russian children. Nothing about the election campaign. A day later, when the Times confronted him with new information, he changed his story, conceding that there was an expectation of campaign help from the Russians. As it turned out, Mr. Trump Jr. said, there was no such assistance. The woman said she had information about how Russians were funding the Democratic National Committee, a possibility he discounted.
The news of the meeting came at the same time as President Trump was saying, following the G20 summit, that it's time for the White House and the Kremlin to put the story of election meddling behind them and move on to working hand in hand on cyber security. That he would wish to take such a tack – let bygones be bygones – is hardly surprising.
The meeting with Ms. Veselnitskaya was viewed as so important that Mr. Trump Jr. brought along Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, as well as then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, who later resigned his post over controversies surrounding his ties with the Russians in Ukraine.
President Trump, his son claims, was not apprised of the meeting. But that strains credulity. He had just sealed the Republican nomination. He was seen as a long shot to defeat Ms. Clinton. It would be remarkable if his inner sanctum did not inform him of a pending meeting with potential dirt coming on his opponent from the Russians.
The meeting may have been a one-off deal. It doesn't establish that any collusion between the two sides took place. The Kremlin today unconvincingly denied knowing of Ms. Veselnitskaya. But yet to be determined is what transpired at many other subsequent meetings with Trump officials and Russians. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned after lying about his communications with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was found not to have disclosed his meeting with the ambassador and Mr. Kushner also attended a meeting with Mr. Kislyak.
White House attempts to contain the potential scandal are being undermined by media leaks. The Times report was based on interviews with three advisers to the White House, as well as two others with knowledge of the meeting. The insiders are leaking at great risk as they could be prosecuted for such activity. But that so many, whether from the White House or the intelligence agencies or elsewhere, are willing to take the risk is an indication of how much internal opposition Mr. Trump faces.
President Trump has been trashing – and he was at it again in a tweet storm this morning – the media and the intelligence agencies, notably former FBI director James Comey whom he fired, in an effort to get the collusion story behind him.
It isn't working. The new revelation on his son's activities brings it back into full glare. With the leaks, the Congressional investigations, the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller, there is no containing it.
If in fact Trump officials did collude with a hostile power to disrupt the election, the story will eventually get out. The Trump challenge will then be to prevent it from bringing doom to his administration.