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But my emails? Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Its one of the oldest messaging challenges in politics, one that has bedeviled countless administrations, Republican and Democratic alike: What do you say when the presidents son publishes emails on Twitter that prove the highest-ranking members of your campaign including a current senior White House adviser eagerly accepted an invitation to participate in a Kremlin-orchestrated effort to swing the American election, after virtually everyone in the White House spent months mocking that idea as a defamatory crock cooked up by sore-loser Democrats?

Its quite the sticky wicket. And yet the public-relations geniuses at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have already settled on a rock-solid rebuttal: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are bad. Per Axios:

Theres an emerging strategyto turn this back around on the Democrats.

An extreme example of this approach is Roger Stone, who texted Axios:The president can turn the tables and dominate the dialogue by ordering the indictment of [James] Clapper, [John] Brennan, [Susan] Rice and [former president Barack] Obama for the wholesale unconstitutional surveillance of Americans I would seriously arrest [and] perp walk every one of these criminals, making as big a show of it as possible.

Although Stone is a longtime confidant of Trump, this in no way reflects the strategy preferred by current White House staffers.With that said, there are already internal conversations about turning this into a conversation about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the way they handled sensitive intelligence.

To Stones credit, sending the entire Obama administration to Guantnamo Bay would go a long way toward burying this Trump Jr. story. But assuming the president declines to go full authoritarian, this is some pretty thin gruel and old, stale, leftover thin gruel at that.

Its unclear exactly what the connection between Don Jr.s emails and Obamas handling of sensitive intelligence is supposed to be.Ostensibly, the only way the email exchange could function as evidence of Obamas mishandling of intelligence and/or surveillance is as a sign that he should have been much more aggressive about spying on the Trump campaign. (Perhaps, President Trump plans to drop Obama wire-tapped my team as part of fake Russia WITCH HUNT for weak Obama didnt even bother to wiretap my team while they were colluding with RUSSIAN HACKERS total incompetence, no wonder Putin didnt respect!)

More likely, the Trump team plans to breathe new life into its (wholly unsubstantiated) claim that the Obama administration excessively used its (legitimate) authority to unmask the names of American citizens caught up in routine surveillance so as to better understand the content of intelligence reports. Even before we learned this scandal was a fraud manufactured by the White House, it was a snoozer a controversy over bureaucratic protocols that was somehow supposed to attract public attention away from the real-life, tragicomic spy novel that is the Russia story.

Officially, the president has said little beyond denying that he had any knowledge of the meeting, and insisting, My son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency.

The administrations defenders in the media and Congress arent having much better luck putting lipstick on this warthog. The Washington Posts Ed Rogers had to rewrite his column decrying the medias hysteria about imaginary collusion multiple times on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity argued that the emails actually prove Trump didnt collude with the Russians because if he wanted to engage in a criminal conspiracy then why would he have tried to put some distance between himself and the crime?

Rush Limbaugh took a similar tack.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch argued that the story was being overblown, since Trump Jr. is not part of the administration, he doesnt carry any banner, he doesnt have any particular job inthe administration an argument that (bizarrely) ignores the fact that Jared Kushner attended the same meeting as Trump Jr. and was forwarded the same emails that informed the presidents son that agreeing to that meeting would mean cooperating with the Kremlin.

Many GOP lawmakers declined to comment, offering variations on the sentiment lets wait to see what the investigation finds. Which would be a halfway reasonable response if Kushner wasnt still working in the White House with a top-secret security clearance.

Ohio senator Rob Portman decided to go out on a limb and express the opinion that accepting an invitation to benefit from a Russian-government conspiracy to manipulate the American electorate was not appropriate.

But Ted Cruz, for one, found virtue in the administrations game plan, contending that Donald Trump Jr.s emails are just one more piece of evidence than the Obama-Clinton policy of constant weakness and appeasement of Putin was a total failure that facilitated Russian aggression.

The Texas senator said that he was, therefore, glad that the Trump administration is returning to a commonsense defense of our allies against our adversaries.

This is true enough if one stipulates that Vladimir Putin is now one of the GOPs allies, and a well-functioning American democracy the partys mortal enemy.

The money, included in a Homeland Security spending bill, is likely to set up a shutdown fight with Democrats.

The administration is already brainstorming how they can spin this into a conversation about Clintons mishandling of sensitive intelligence.

Will the extra time enable Republicans to come up with a health-care bill 50 senators support? Or deals on taxes and the budget?

Kushner attended a meeting that was explicitly framed as an opportunity to benefit from Russian meddling. And he still has a security clearance.

Weve gone from evidence of collusion to proof.

A man of many talents.

GOP base voters have long regarded the media as biased allies of their enemies. Its taken Trump to convince them any bad news is just made up.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump.

The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.

Protesters promised to greet him if he made his official state visit.

An unedited Q&A with the prominent climatologist, who took issue with New Yorks latest cover story for being overly doomist.

The Kremlin-linked lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. claims that he was desperate for dirt on Clinton but she had none to give.

Hua Haifeng was investigating factories where the First Daughters shoes were made before his arrest.

In their desire to see Trump banished, theyve embraced some unusual bedfellows, like Benjamin Wittes.

It involves a beauty pageant, a Russian pop star, and Trumps decades-old dream of building in Moscow.

Sources say before meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, he was told the dirt she had on Hillary Clinton was part of a larger Russian effort.

The pro-Trump local-news giant has tripled the number of Boris Epshteyn segments that all its affiliates must air each week.

He could tap McConnells favorite Luther Strange or Hannitys favorite Mo Brooks. Theocrat Roy Moores in the mix, too.

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White House: The Real Story of Don Jr.'s Emails Is That Democrats Are Bad - New York Magazine