Standard procedure with responsible reporting.

They gave him a chance to respond so he decided to pretend that he was generously releasing them himself.

I read that Kushner's lawyers found the emails. That would make sense, Kushner's legal jeopardy is higher (I guess because he is an employee...which I suppose means he took an oath) so his lawyers dig around to find what the FBI might find re: sketchy meetings.

But this means Kushner gave the emails to the Times? Which I don't think he would do without talking to Ivanka, maybe even Trump Senior was consulted. Are we playing out some version of King Lear here? Calling Dr. Freud.

Just before 11:00 Jr started posting.
The Times released their info before he finished.

They should have just let the NYT release them and then started tweeting away about the evils of Democrats, Hillary, Obama, and whatever else they throw against the wall

Morons

Or his father.

Both would have told him not to do it.

Jr. made a knee-jerk decision out of panic.

like they got from Kushner's lawyers. He's had time to decide what to do, bizarrely.

so are his lawyers.
Deny, point fingers, obfuscate.
He gave them the info from HIS account. No blaming on fake news. No blaming on others. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he could sow doubt and keep others off balance.

He offered to cooperate. Ha! They have his emails. He gave them his leverage.

Trumpcare is dead in the water. Maybe they thought it would be a distraction from the Repubs' ineptitude.

Yes, it's a helluva distraction, but we're not dealing with the brightest bulbs on the tree.

the fall, putting out something very damning to make us feel like we have gotten the full story when in fact the full story is that Russia manipulated the actual vote totals.

The whole thing seemed too easy and too orchestrated to me. Trump(R) senior was in on the drafting of the statement that the meeting was about adoptions. So he knew what would eventually come out.

So I'm guessing its a smokescreen to hide the worse story.

...and that he could admit to a lot without getting himself anywhere near in trouble. Also, he has no clue what is and is not allowed by law.

He has yet to be proven wrong.

Repubs are calling it a nothingburger. By releasing it, casual observers will think there's nothing to it or he wouldn't have released it. The question is: what does Mueller think?

...which probably prompted him to release them himself.

Still, looking at it objectively, it makes no sense at all for him to release them.

Getting ahead of a story that shows pretty damningly that your father's campaign was colluding with Russia accomplished nothing. He'd still get run over by the story.

It would have made more practical sense just to let the Times do its thing and attempt to run damage control or dilute the message after the fact. Probably wouldn't have accomplished much, but it would at least not make him look so stupid.

Shouting to the world, "Hey, lookie here! Here are emails showing we were colluding with Russia! And remember I gave them to you before the Times did, so neener-neener on them!"....no matter what way you slice it, it's just dumb.

Unless of course he was going to admit to his role and turn state's evidence. But instead, he ran to Hannity and still claimed he did nothing wrong.

The idea of "getting out in front of the story" has one prerequisite, innocence.

When all prerequisites are not met, don't implement tried and true practice

And wants out. It's often been theorized that daddy doesn't like being president, but it's also entirely possible that junior hates this gig, too.

and I don't mean salary. They are looting the treasury and want to stay to get more. They have to know if they leave in disgrace it will not be good for the Trump brand in the future, think Nixon. No one would have given Nixon the time of day after he resigned.

Maybe at a subconscious level, but not intentionally.

I do think that spotlight is going to get hot.

around the time of the inauguration, that he missed the excitement of the campaign. He also seemed to be hinting about running for office himself in the future.

Jared Kushner is in criminal liability for not reporting the meeting, not Don Jr. They want this story to be about Little Donnie instead of about criminality in the White House.

and I still say Trump is trying to use him as the sacrificial lamb, especially since Junior is by far his dumbest kid

Not the sharpest tool in the shed, so to speak