BAM ALLOWED ELEX MEDDLE!
Trump deflects blame
President Trump continued his Twitter tirade about Russian involvement in the 2016 election on Monday, asking why his Oval Office predecessor didn’t “do something” when he was in command.
“Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn’t he do something about Russian meddling?” Trump wrote.
The tweet was another in a series he posted over the weekend to his 48 million followers about the Russia investigation, blaming the FBI for being distracted by the probe, denying he colluded with Moscow and even disagreeing with H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, who said evidence of Kremlin meddling was “incontrovertible.”
Trump’s attacks came after the Justice Department on Friday indicted 13 Russian na- tionals for carrying out an elaborate plot to sabotage the vote by “sowing discord” and backing Trump over Hillary Clinton.
The Obama administration struck back at Russia but not until after Election Day, ejecting 35 Russian officials and closing two compounds used as retreats by Russian diplomats in Maryland and Long Island in December 2016.
Obama aides explained they struggled with speaking out after learning of the Russia hacking in summer 2016 because the election was in full swing and any action could be seen as affecting the results.
Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, summed up their quandary during an interview last month at the Council of Foreign Relations.
“Had we known what we knew three weeks later, we may have done something more,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin flatout denied it had any involvement in the plot — even though 13 Russians and three Russian companies were charged and the scheme was bankrolled by a billionaire known as President Vladimir Putin’s “chef.”
“There are no indications that the Russian state could have been involved in this and nor can there be any,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. “Russia did not meddle, does not have the habit of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, and is not doing so now.”
Moscow’s involvement was overseen by a troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, which was funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who made a fortune on government contracts while catering events for the Kremlin, according to the 37-page indictment.