Why are Trump and his team so reluctant to tell the truth about their dealings with Russia?

Trump throughout his campaign lied that he has no business interests in Russia, but confirmed last week that they had been planning writing his name on a building in Moscow.

Trump Jr met with Russians in Trump Tower and lied that it was about adopting Russian children but then released emails contradicting this.

Cohen admits he lied to Congress about that Moscow building to conceal it during the election campaign.

Flynn lied to the FBI about talking to the Russian ambassador, and later pleaded guilty to this.

Flynn's deputy, McFarland, told the FBI she'd never spoken with Flynn about the above, later changing her story to say she had.

Jared forgot to reveal his meetings with Russians on his security clearance forms, and also said he had no idea what the Trump Tower meeting was about as he didn't read his email to the end.

Manafort lied about pretty much everything to the point where he is now a useless witness and his plea bargain was ripped up.

Guiliani lied about the Trump Tower meeting by saying they didn't even know the people they were meeting were Russians.

Sessions lied under oath three times that he had no contact with the Russians in the campaign, it later emerging that he'd met the ambassador three times.

Papadopoulous lied to the FBI about how hard he tried to get Hillary information from the Russians during the campaign, later pleading guilty to this.

Erik Prince said under oath that he met with a Russian businessman by chance - this meeting was actually an attempt to create a backchannel for Trump to talk with Russia.

Roger Stone lied about knowing exactly what wikileaks was about to unleash about the Democrats, claiming it was all posture and hype (must have got lucky a lot).

Jerome Corsi, similarly, claimed he found out about wikileaks releases on his own, rather than being told by Stone. Despite that, he admits thinking up a cover story with Stone to explain how he knew.


Quite a list, and it's by no means the whole story. Why would entirely innocent people need to lie so much?