The point of the Times is to write stories fed by the CIA. But the stories need to be defended by something other than the CIA. Its illegal for the CIA to leak. So the CIA leaks to the Times and the Times tries to come up with information that defends the stories.
Remember all the things you know from this last summer. Trump was not the nominee. Bernie was still in the election and had larger crowds than Hillary. Bernie is a socialist, so Russians like Bernie the most. Trump did not know the Russians were the source of the Wiki-Leak emails. So Trump would have no problem taking this meeting.
We know that the CIA did bug Russians and any other foreigner they wanted to without permission. They also asked to bug the Trump Tower right after this meeting. Then before losing power they unmasked anyone they could in the Trump Campaign who talked to this women or any foreigner who talked to the Trump Campaign.
So this story is really a part of the narrative that the Deep State, set up by Obama, is still attacking. And they got this story because the Russian story was disappearing. The CIA unmasked Junior and they are using these emails as proof. But they found the emails because they were bugging the Russians in Trump tower and unmasked Junior.
Putin Russians did not like Bernie the most. Bernie was for Scandinavian style democratic socialism, not the kind that Putin follows that includes murdering reporters who ask questions, possibly blowing up apartment buildings so as to justify war in Chechnia, invading and taking over the Crimea, and trying same in the Ukraine after Ukraine gave up all their atomic weapons. What Scandinavian country has doing anything even remotely like that?
The Russians were not the source of the Wiki-leak e-mails.