What the columnists said

“For so many people who are close to Donald Trump, Russia is the Bermuda Triangle of their memory,” said Richard Wolffe in TheGuardian .com. Conversations and meetings “pass through this mysterious quadrant of their brains and simply disappear.” Sessions’ amnesia fortunately dissipated enough that he remembered he “pooh-poohed” the idea of a Trump-Putin meeting. “Somehow he could remember none of the other sordid details of what normal people call collusion.”

“It’s hard to overstate the mind-blowing stupidity of” what Donald Trump Jr. did, said Jill Filipovic in CNN.com. By the time the president’s son began corresponding with WikiLeaks, it was already obvious that the organization was “in the tank for Putin.” If nothing else, these messages show that “the Trumps were so interested in winning” the election that they were willing to engage with America’s enemies to do it.

“To be sure, none of this proves Trump Jr. broke any laws,” said John Cassidy in NewYorker.com. Podesta’s emails had been hacked well before Trump Jr. started messaging with WikiLeaks. However, it can be a crime to aid in the dissemination of stolen material, though the law is “somewhat murky.” Presumably this is something special counsel Robert Mueller “will be eager to explore.” The revelations this week are “still a far cry from actual collusion with the Russian government,” said Siraj Hashmi in WashingtonExaminer.com. Even so, Trump Jr. should have known better. WikiLeaks’ “goal was to cause as much chaos in our electoral process as possible”—regardless of who won.