Trump again says Russia is no threat
White House tries to clarify his bucking of top intelligence aide
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Russia is no longer targeting the United States, contradicting his top intelligence adviser’s warning days ago that “the lights are blinking red” about cyberattacks and reigniting bipartisan concerns over his recent embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The president’s flat “no” came in response to a reporter’s question about Russian threats during a White House meeting with the Cabinet. Two hours later, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was only saying “no” to answering any questions, a contention denied by the reporter and others in the room.
“Is Russia still targeting the U.S.?” the reporter asked as a small group of journalists was being ushered out of the meeting.
“No,” Trump responded, looking directly at the questioner. He went on to say, “We are doing very well, probably as well as anybody has ever done with Russia.”
The president’s apparent denial of an ongoing threat from Russia contradicted his chief intelligence adviser, director of national intelligence Dan Coats, who on Friday compared warning signs of cyberattacks by Russia and others to intelligence rumblings before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“The warning lights are blinking red again,” Coats said. “Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.”
Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, has also said that Russia has not been deterred from con- President Donald Trump said the Russians were no longer targeting the United States as they did in 2016. tinuing its campaign of hacking and disinformation that helped scramble the presidential race two years ago.
“We are just one click of the keyboard away from a similar situation repeating itself,” he said.
The day after Coats issued his warning, Trump expressed his doubts in an interview with “CBS Evening News.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that,” he said. “I’d have to look.”
The White House did not seek to clarify that remark. But when Trump’s answer on Wednesday immediately spawned a new round of news reports suggesting a president at odds with his intelligence advisers, and partial to Russia, the White House was forced to restart damage control efforts that began after his widely panned performance at a summit with Putin in Helsinki on Monday.
After Sanders told reporters at a White House briefing that Trump was not denying that Russia is targeting the United States but merely ruling out answering any questions, reporters who were present disputed her version.
Cecilia Vega, the ABC News reporter who asked the question, said on Twitter, “Getting a lot of questions about my exchange” with Trump. “Yes, he was looking directly at me when he spoke. Yes, I believe he heard me clearly. He answered two of my questions.”
After Trump’s initial response to her, Vega immediately followed by asking, to clarify, “No? You don’t believe that to be the case?”
“No,” Trump replied again, twice.
Similarly, the White House pool report, which is broadly distributed to media outlets, said Trump was answering Vega, not indicating that he didn’t want to take questions. “Your pooler stands by that report,” the correspondent wrote in a subsequent report after Sanders’ briefing.
The White House’s cleanup efforts continued later as Trump sat for an interview with CBS News anchor Jeff Glor.
Though Trump had not criticized Putin in several interviews and numerous public comments since their Helsinki meeting, he told Glor that he holds the Russian leader responsible for interfering in the 2016 campaign “because he’s in charge of the country.”
“I let him know we can’t have this, we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be,” Trump said.
The latest episode seeking to explain away Trump’s comments on Russia and U.S. intelligence followed his already confused efforts on Tuesday to tamp down the bipartisan furor over his performance in Helsinki.
During a joint news conference alongside the Russian president, Trump seemed to accept Putin’s denials over the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 campaign. To one question, he also declined to publicly warn Putin not to attempt similar tactics in the future.
Trump added, “We’re doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in 2018,” when the midterm election that will determine control of Congress will be held.
But his statement Wednesday cast doubt on whether the president understands the danger and plans to defend against it.
“He is not willing to accept the reality of the threat,” said Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under President George W. Bush and as head of the National Security Agency under Bush and President Bill Clinton. “He has not issued anything like what the government needs to mount a whole-of-government response to what the Russians are doing.”
Despite Trump’s continued efforts to downplay Russia’s interference, special counsel Robert Mueller has only dug deeper into Moscow’s activities to help Trump in 2016. On Friday while Trump was in Britain, where he denigrated the Mueller inquiry during a news conference with the prime minister, the Justice Department announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking emails and other documents from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic organizations.
The charges follow another indictment from February naming 13 Russians connected to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which U.S. officials say spread disinformation on social media to inflame political tensions among Americans and boost Trump’s bid for the White House. Coats, in his speech Friday, said the Russian organization remains active.