What the email exchange and meeting demonstrate is a willingness to work with Russia if it could help the campaign, regardless of potential illegality (or at least bad optics if it became public).

The meeting took place towards the end of the primaries, about a month before the Republican National Convention. Kushner and Manafort’s schedules would have been jam-packed as their operation scaled up for the general election campaign. For them to take the time to meet with Veselnitskaya shows, at the very least, they were intrigued by the idea.

I agree with you that nothing in Junior’s emails shows evidence of “colluding with Russia in their interference in the election.” But it does provide incontrovertible evidence that the Trump team’s repeated denials of any contact with anyone from the Russian government about anything to do with the campaign were false.

It’s possible this was a one-off. But, given the openness on display in Junior’s email’s — and Kushner and Manafort agreeing to a meeting after Junior forwarded them the email exchange — it wouldn’t be surprising to find out this wasn’t the only instance.