Donald Trump Jr.

I have been quite bemused by the junior Donald’s explanation of his interaction with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the connected Russian attorney.

Veselnitskaya, he says, wished to speak about adoption and the Magnitsky Act. Assuming we were to take him at his word, several questions must be asked:

First, how and why did Trump internediary Rob Goldstone and his client believe that Donald Jr. could be approached with such an unprecedented offer of assistance?

Second, why would Veselnitskaya wish to discuss U.S. sanctions on Russia and Russia’s retaliatory actions with three campaign operatives as opposed to State Department or congressional staffers? The latter would presumably have had more influence than the former.

Assuming the answer to the second question is that she was focusing on the likelihood of a Trump administration, what then were the arguments offered to justify a future lifting of these sanctions? Or to resume Russian adoptions by U.S. citizens?

We have advanced from smoke to fire. Let us hope that the hyper-patriots of the Grand Old Party will keep the people and interests of the United States from going down in flames.

This story was originally published July 15, 2017 at 10:15 PM with the headline "Donald Trump Jr.."