The Russia House: Donald Trump Jr. released emails in which he happily agreed to meet with a Russian lawyer offering campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, basically admitting that he and his father’s campaign were willing to collaborate with a representative of Russia.

An intermediary setting up the meeting wrote that the offered documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” He went on, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Trump Junior’s response was, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

The meeting took place on June 9, 2016, and included Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Trump Tower just one floor below the future president.

Some legal experts say that if the information was actually handed over, it may be a violation of campaign finance law that prohibits foreign nationals from giving something of “value” to an American campaign.

President Trump has denied any campaign connection to Russia, and claimed that the whole thing is a sour grapes fabrication of the Democrats who lost the election. Trump issued a statement yesterday through spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who read, ““My son is a high-quality person, and I applaud his transparency.”

Tweet by Tweet: In an outpouring of 50 tweets, University of New Hampshire Professor Seth Abramson stitched together the whole Don Jr story.

Boiled down:

(12) This is a good time to note that by this time in 2016 both Kushner and Manafort had had undisclosed conversations with Russian agents.

(23) Moreover, we know from Politico that Trump was “hunkered with his advisers,” including Manafort and Kushner, discussing anti-HRC intel.

(24) So Trump was in a building he owns—with his sons and his manager—discussing the very topic (anti-HRC intel) Don Jr’s meeting was about.

(31) And we now know what the Trumps, Kushner, and Manafort spent the rest of the day doing: writing a major speech about… anti-HRC intel.

(34) During that speech he claimed “enemies” of the U.S. had a “blackmail file” on Clinton—clearly using a Russian phrasing for “kompromat.”

(50) And this may be a good time to note that just 72 hours after this June 9 meeting, WikiLeaks began to dump huge blocs of anti-HRC intel.

Vacay Delay: Way short of the votes he needs to pass his health care bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed the Senate recess until the third week of August. The delay is an admission that even while controlling Congress and the White House, the Republicans are unable to govern the country.

A new version of the health care bill is expected to be revealed Thursday with an evaluation by the Congressional Budget Office as soon as Monday. The Republicans want to vote on the bill next week, live or die.

“Once the Senate completes its work on health care reform, we will turn to other important issues including the National Defense Authorization Act and the backlog of critical nominations that have been mindlessly stalled by Democrats,” McConnell said.

Dept. Of Fact Checking: A lot of good stories don’t survive scrutiny. A recent History Channel documentary relied on an old photograph to pose the theory that missing aviator Amelia Earhart was captured by the Japanese and died in custody. The grainy picture showed two people among others on a pier on a Japanese-controlled Pacific atoll.

Great story, but a Japanese blogger found the picture in a photo book published in 1935, two years before Earhart’s fateful flight.

Gluten Tolerant: The Catholic Church announced that it will not allow totally gluten free wafers to be used as “the host” for communion. While the church will accept wheat-based wafers with as little as 20 parts per million of gluten, it will not accept rice, potato, tapioca or other flours in place of wheat.

Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at Catholic University, told the Washington Post, “Christ did not institute the Eucharist as rice and sake, or sweet potatoes and stout.”

On the upside, totally gluten-intolerant parishioners may take communion with wine only.

-30-