Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The gunsmoke from Donald Trump Junior’s email looks thin at best

Reactions to each development in the Trump-Russia scandal tend to follow the same pattern. At first, journalists express incredulity and then horror. It doesn’t matter if the Team Trump member under suspicion is Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Junior, even big daddy Trump himself, everybody agrees this is big news. Dots are connected and then, click, we all conclude that Russia ‘hacked’ the election.

Then, once the initial flush of excitement, passes, everybody says ‘where is the actual evidence?’ Or ‘is it really that bad?’ And the Trump-Russia scandal subsides for a few days. People who are inclined to accept Trump’s presidency say that the media has gone mad over the Russia thing. People who aren’t lament that the free world has just rolled over and accepted that the world’s greatest power has been tricked by the Kremlin, and look out for the next big Trump-Russia story.

Yesterday’s New York Times Donald Trump Jnr scoop feels different — or at least it did yesterday. At last, the press and Trump’s enemies have the ‘smoking gun’ they have been looking for, as Jacob Heilbrunn put it yesterday. The White House seemed wrongfooted — excuses about political naivety just won’t wash, given it has now been shown that Trump Jnr, who was intimately involved in his father’s campaign, had replied so enthusiastically to a Russian government conspiracy to incriminate Hillary Clinton. The word impeachment flared up again over social media.

Very soon, though, doubts as to how damning the story is start to creep in. All Trump Jnr did as far as we know was express excitement in response to a shady email – like an idiot enthusiastically responding to some Nigerian phishing scam — and hold a meeting about it. Happens to the best of us. 

Trump jr’s ‘I love it’ response could prove to be criminal in the eyes of the law, and little Donny’s naivety defence may not hold.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in