Josh Marshall has linked up the timeline with Junior's emails and locked up a big piece of the larger picture, one that puts Donald Trump SENIOR right at the top of the food chain.

Here we go!

June 3rd, 2016: First email contact between Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr. about meeting with “Russian government lawyer” with damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

June 7th, 2016: Donald J Trump gives speech in which he promises a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s crimes on June 13th. “I am going to give a major speech on … probably Monday [June 13th] of next week and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.”

June 8th, 2016: First tweet posted to “DCLeaks” Twitter account.

June 9th, 2016: Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meet with Natalia Veselnitskaya. Trump agreed to take the meeting after being told by Trump associate Rob Goldstone that Veselnitskaya had damaging information about Hillary Clinton which came from a Russian government operation to help his father Donald J. Trump.:

June 12th, 2016: Julian Assange first announces that Wikileaks has Clinton emails which are soon to be released. “Wikileaks has a very big year ahead … We have emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.”

The speech referred to by Trump ended up being a nothingburger, too. Remember? They hyped how they were going to drop the goods on Hillary, and then he gave a speech where he said she's a terrible person because we all know it.

He also went full tinfoil hat, relying on a wingnut book for much of his speech, mostly because he didn't have the Russian dirt he needed to punch it up.

OF COURSE Trump was part of the conspiracy. OF COURSE he was. And those emails are the smoking gun, along with the sudden decision to schedule a formal speech to trash his opponent.

To quote Ben Wittes, tick tick tick tick tick tick