Russian cloud casts new shadow over GOP agenda

President Trump is under a new Russian cloud, frustrating Republicans who see their fraught efforts to push a legislative agenda being overshadowed once again.

The New York Times on Sunday revealed that the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. last year met a Kremlin-linked lawyer who suggested she had damaging information on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting.

The Times followed up with another revelation on Monday evening, reporting that the younger Trump had been told in advance of this June 2016 meeting that the purportedly damaging information was part of an attempt by the Russian government to assist his father's presidential bid.

The news comes at a critical juncture for Republican leaders, who have struggled to move the party's agenda on Capitol Hill. The Senate is hoping to pass an ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill this month, but getting such a measure through the upper chamber in that timeframe looks more and more unlikely. 

Reverberations are also being felt from Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 conference in Hamburg, Germany, last week. 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341371-the-memo-russian-cloud-casts-new-shadow-over-gop-agenda

Or it can serve as a distraction from the pile of shit legislation the GOP is trying to pass.