A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

The lawyers had discovered correspondence suggesting Russians had a special pipeline into the campaign and that some people around Trump knew the Kremlin was trying to help his candidacy. They thought these exchanges were horrifying and certain to show Trump had lied, but did not necessarily pose a legal problem. “Anybody with half a brain realized it’s politically explosive even if legally irrelevant,” recalled one of the lawyers reviewing the material. “It’s just awful stuff.” The emails revealed that Donald Trump Jr. excitedly and naively set up a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016 with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. In the exchanges, Rob Goldstone, a British talent promoter who was helping broker the meeting, relayed that the Russians were offering “to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”