March 4, 2017–Even as two days ago Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any inquiry on the Russian caper, the Trump White House was busily asserting that Mr. Sessions was being improperly accused. Just another step in this delicate dance. Let’s review the latest developments in the story of the Russian caper.

First, the Russians. The evidence on them grows by the day. Yesterday the New York Times reported that Dimitri K. Simes, of the Center for the National Interest, introduced the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei I. Kislyak, to Donald J. Trump. That happened in April 2016 at a Center dinner. On March 2, Trump adviser Carter Page admitted on an MSNBC telecast, “All In with Chris Hayes,” that he had met with Ambassador Kislyak in Cleveland during the Republican Convention last July. Jeff Sessions who gave the nominating speech for Trump at Cleveland, also met with Kislyak at the convention. Michael T. Flynn, the retired Army general who initially led Trump’s national security staff, was in Cleveland too, but his contacts there with the Russian ambassador have yet to be established.

Now there are new skeins of yarn atop those. In the early days of the Trump campaign the candidate hardly had a foreign policy advisory shop. Just a few people, really, and Trump explicitly mentioned Carter Page as one of them. J.D. Gordon was another. Both participated in a Global Partners in Diplomacy round table event held at Case Western Reserve University during the convention, where they spoke afterwards with the Russian ambassador. Both men, when initially questioned, denied having met Mr. Kislyak. Equally to the point, Gordon had an official role at the convention as representing Trump’s interests on the Republican Platform Committee, and there he acted to block language in the party platform that would have condemned Russia’s aggressive actions in the Ukraine. Here the quid for the quo begins to come into view.

On July 25 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it had begun investigating Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Two days after that Mr. Trump virtually invited the Russians to hack America, in the guise of asking if they could find emails of Hillary Clinton that were missing from her computer servers.

Jeff Sessions saw the Russian again, in Washington at the then-senator’s Capitol Hill office, on September 8. According to the assorted reports on the Russian hacking from U.S. security services, the cyber intrusions peaked around May 2016. Readers of this space will know that already last year we observed that the American spies botched their inquiry into the Russian caper by serving up watered down evidence that permitted both the Russians and the Republicans wide scope for denial. But you can see in this chronology a logical progression– the Russian links with Trump, Russian cyber positions itself to act, Russians apparently all over the Republican convention, Trump invites them to do more, Kislyak sees Sessions at least one other time.

Sessions’s role is underlined by the odd way he responded at his confirmation hearing for Attorney General, when asked if he would recuse himself from any U.S. investigation of the Russian Caper. Sessions did not answer that question at all. Instead the nominee talked about his contacts with Russians: “I didn’t have–did not have communications with the Russians.” Since Senator Sessions was under oath when he said this, the categorical denial amounted to perjury.

Another key Trumpian power player, son-in-law Jared Kushner, had more contacts with Ambassador Kislyak during the transitional period following the November 2016 vote. The Washington Post reminds us of an important Russian comment, just after the election, from deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, who told the Interfax news agency not only that there had been Russian contacts with the Trump campaign, but went on, “Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage.”

Now let’s bring back General Flynn. It became apparent shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration that, in December, when President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia to respond to the hacking, Flynn was on the phone to Kislyak the same day. The general lied to Vice-President Michael Pence about the contacts, leading the latter to spread falsehoods in defending the Trump campaign. Flynn’s lies were serious enough to force him to resign as national security adviser.

What is it that requires multiple participants to obfuscate, lie, or otherwise obscure their roles when asked about an activity? Guilty knowledge. This is not an individual event. There is a pattern here. Whether or not the conspiracy was criminal can be established only by investigation. The FBI itself is not entirely in the clear. Its questionable role adds to the mystery. It’s a good thing Mr. Sessions recused himself, but I fear America is going to need more than that to get to the bottom of this.