Author and expert on authoritarian regimes Sarah Kendzior analyzed the implications of the latest reports on Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who admitted to being an "informant" for the Kremlin.
"Is there any problem now for Donald Trump, Jr., in your view, if it turns out that the person he was having these discussions about derogatory information about turns out to be a criminal informant," MSNBC anchor Joy Reid asked.
"I mean yes, there should be a problem," Kendzior replied. "There should've been a problem from the very beginning when he published his e-mails ... we saw this laid out, we saw the illicit ties that they had denied a long time -- documented."
The latest reports could haunt President Trump and his administration beyond his eldest son. The meeting between Veselnitskaya and Trump, Jr. was also attended by son-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manfort, who at the timing was managing the Trump campaign.
"What's important is to look at this in the broader scope of illicit connections between members of the Trump campaign and Trump administration and the Kremlin and oligarchs," Kendzior suggested. "Trump, Jr. is only one part of this puzzle."
"They are trying to say there is no collusion, but I think what we're seeing here is the cover up," she continued. "We have two layers of this problem, one is what they did in the illicit ties and the other is the constant lying that's been going on for the last two years."
Watch:
This image obtained from the Mississippi Highway Patrol shows emergency personnel on Highway 49 near Silver City after a tornado touched down © Handout / Mississippi Highway Patrol/AFP
