Well quite.
Once upon a time, if someone senior in a presidential candidate's campaign team, or a close relative, were approached out of the blue by someone saying they were an agent of another country and wanted to provide detrimental information about a rival candidate, I'm pretty sure things would have gone differently. As tempted as the person might be, they'd have to consider that the "foreign agent" was perhaps trying to set them up or planning to blackmail them or the candidate. If word got out about the connection, it would be curtains for their career and potentially jail time, and the candidate would probably be toast by association. To cover their ass, they'd probably go to the authorities and come clean about the approach - perhaps getting brownie points for their honesty.
But it doesn't look like Trump Junior is worried about the risks. By his own account, he wanted dirt on his father's rival and was gutted when the promised info wasn't forthcoming. When he finally was caught out yes, he released a doctored transcript of the correspondence, but didn't apologise or show any regret for poor judgement. His excuse seems to be because he didn't get the compromising information he hoped for, he didn't do anything wrong.
Like, "yeah, I broke into the bank and stole a safe I hoped was full of gold, but it was empty when I cracked it, so I'm innocent, me."
Again, in "other times" a revelation like this would have probably led to the immediate arrest of the "senior person" involved and the president would eating massive portions of humble pie, begging forgiveness, pledging to help the investigation and basically anything possible to save their ass. If they know the breadcrumb trail will lead to them, they'd probably resign and hope for a pardon from their VP.
But here and now, I don't get the sense either Trump Junior or Senior are that worried about the consequences. They've broken a swathe of rules and laws since the election, so why worry about comeback now?
This is also assuming Trump Junior's account is accurate, which I doubt given the family track record. Was the approach out of the blue? Was no "compromising" information handed over? There's certainly no way Trump Senior wouldn't have known about the meeting because of his well documented control freakery, and the timing of the meeting and one of his tweets during the campaign last year is "interesting."
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Oh, and there are long connections between the Trumps and "go between" Emin Agalarov, mentioned in the emails.
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So, what happens next? Is this the final straw in a parade of final straws? Caught red handed, so surely the game is up?
Trump's rich supporters probably would have preferred there'd been no scandal, but so long as they all walk out smelling of roses, it's no biggie. No amount of evidence - even when provided by Don Junior himself, will convince Trump's wider support base that he's done anything wrong. They'll just passively accept whatever explanation they're given by the Trump team and dismiss everything else as "fake news" or "moaning libtards," and mutter something about Clinton's emails (not even realising the irony of that!)
I suspect, sadly, very little will happen. GOP leaders may be embarrassed, but they're not making statements condemning Don Junior. They're staying quiet in hopes it will blow over and be forgotten soon, so they can continue pursuit of their agenda.
