White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted on Monday that a meeting at the center of allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government was probably just about international adoption policy. “There was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe” that the meeting between top Trump campaign operatives, including the president’s eldest son, did not have to do with Russia’s ban on the adoption of children by U.S. families, Spicer said. The statement contradicted both the contents of an email setting up the meeting—in which an associate of Donald Trump Jr. offered to set him up with agents of the Russian government who could provide dirt on 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton—and statements by President Trump himself. The president has tacitly acknowledged that his son had taken the meeting in the expectation of soliciting opposition research on Clinton. According to the president, there’s nothing wrong with that. “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That's politics!” he tweeted on Monday.

—Lachlan Markay