I agree it's probably not quite a smoking gun.  The stupidity defense is just to persuasive.

What I think is most damming is, ok, so you had this meeting with this person that allegedly went no place.  Fine.  Not really but moving on.  She says the Russian government has dirt on Hillary blah blah.   They did not get any of this dirt at the time.  Again, whatever.  Conceivable this person is a nut.  If you are reaching for a Trump defense.

What it seems to me there is absolutely no imaginable defense for is later, when the news broke that the the Russians hacked the election, what possible reasonable excuse could you give for not AT LEAST THEN calling the FBI and telling them about this meeting.

The Jr. emails are the smoking gun in the sense that they have cleared the smoke so that the fire has become evident--- taking the scandal on a new path.  The story-line of a hoax and the serial lying for the past year have become inoperative.

  We did it and so what-- has to become the new propaganda. The defense of Don jr. is that he is an "idiot" (NY Daily News) who will be promoted to  useful idiot, with hopes that it will stop there, with him under the bus (to be pardoned later).

 That will be a heavy load, especially since Jared and Manafort were also a part of the meeting. And, there was the email line about bringing the matter to Trump sr, via "Rhona," Trump's trusted assistant.  And, all the surrounding questions of the meeting will be investigated.

It changes, too, President Trump's defense of obstruction of justice. Up until the jr. emails, Trump could claim he fired Comey because he was a nutjob, crazy and incompetent. These already flimsy shields are pierced by the more likely cover-up to protect family.

While not at all certain, since a prediction depends on some degree of sanity, it seems that the prospects of firing Mueller is lessened since such action would also register as a clumsy cover-up. And, the consequences of a Mueller firing would make the Comey dismissal seem like patty cake.

Certainly, there is much yet to learn but the jr. emails signal a place of no return. Of course, many Republicans will stick with Trump (Nixon's approval at resignation was about 28 percent).

this is how-

Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation

Mike Carpenter, who in January left a senior Pentagon post where he worked on Russia matters, also has suspicions about collaboration between the campaign and Russia's cyber operatives.

"There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia's online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation," he said, without naming any American suspects.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice was about to go to trial in a case against Prevezon, a Russian real estate company owned by Denis Katsyv, which was accused of laundering millions of dollars through New York City property. Two days before trial, in May, the case settled.

For starters, the Katsyv family lawyer just happened to be Natalia Veselnitskaya, the same Russian lawyer who famously met with Donald Trump Jr.

On top of that, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York when the case was first filed there in 2013 was none other than Preet Bharara. Yup, the same Preet Bharara who President Trump famously fired, roughly two months before the DOJ settled the Prevezon case.

According to the letter signed by 17 House Democrats, the DOJ had been seeking $230 million in the case, and settled for less than $6 million.

Peter Smith is the guy who was described in the first news stories as having tried to get Clinton emails from Russian hackers and who was said to have connections to Mike Flynn.

in those stories it was said he died soon after being interviewed about this.  and it was said at the time there was "nothing suspicious" about his death.  which itself struck me as sort of suspicious.

now its being reported that he actually committed suicide and that his suicide note said "no foul play whatsoever" caused his death.  which again just seems a little more information than was really necessary.

if he left that note i would say he clearly thought there might be a reason for someone to suspect foul play.

After 1992 Carville stopped working on domestic campaigns, stating that he would bring unneeded publicity. He then worked on a number of foreign campaigns, including those of Tony Blair - then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - during the 2001 general election; Ehud Barak of Israel's Labor Party (at the suggestion of Clinton, who had grown frustrated with Benjamin Netanyahu's intransigence in the peace process) in the 1999 Knesset election; and the Liberal Party of Canada. In 2002, Carville helped Bolivian Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada win the presidency in Bolivia, while working as a Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) strategist. This was portrayed in the documentary Our Brand Is Crisis.

Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani hired Carville as a campaign advisor in July 2009. Carville said that the 2009 Afghan presidential election is "probably the most important election held in the world in a long time," and he called his new job "probably the most interesting project I have ever worked in my life."[19] Carville, who works for Ghani pro bono, when asked about similarities between politics in Afghanistan and politics in Louisiana, responded: "Yeah, I felt a little bit at home, to be honest with you."[20]

In 2010, Carville worked as senior advisor for the campaign of Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos.[21]

He is acting as advisor for Daniel Scioli (Governor of Buenos Aires) re-election campaign.

Russia has meddled in our election. And we have meddled in the affairs of half a dozen nations with "color-coded revolutions." The cry of "regime change!" may daily be heard in the U.S. Capitol.

I am believing, or as Bill Maher says, I can't prove it but I just know it is true, that Gen. Cheeto cut an explicit quid pro quo deal with the Russians.....