Trump: ‘I’m with our agencies’ on Russian election meddling
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it when he says Moscow did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But Trump says he also believes U.S. intelligence agencies, which have concluded that Russia did meddle in the election.
“I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election,” Trump said of Putin at news conference with Vietnam’s President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi “As to whether I believe it, I’m with our agencies.”
“As currently led by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies,” he added.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help the Republican defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump had said that Putin again vehemently denied the allegations — this time during an economic summit in Vietnam. Trump said he believed “that when he tells me that, he means it.”
Trump had also dismissed former U.S. intelligence officials as “political hacks” and accused Democrats of using the issue to try to sabotage relations between the two countries, putting lives at risk.
At the news conference, Trump reiterated his view that it’s crucial for the U.S. to get along with Russia, and seemed to suggest that it was time to remove the sanctions Congress has slapped on Russia in retaliation for its election meddling efforts.
“It’s now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken,” said Trump. “Those are very important things.”
As he traveled to Hanoi, the second-to-last stop of his Asia trip, Trump told reporters that Putin “said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.”
“Every time he sees me, he said: ‘I didn’t do that.’