Trump revises Russia tweets
Calls out Obama for lack of action
President Donald Trump on Saturday called out Obama administration officials for not taking stronger actions against Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contradicting his past statements and suggesting without proof that they were trying to help Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
His tweets came after The Washington Post revealed Friday that the Obama White House had received reports as early as August 2016 regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in the cyber campaign with instructions to defeat or damage Clinton and help to elect Trump, according to “sourcing deep inside the Russian government.”
The Obama administration would not publicly say Russia was attempting to interfere with the election until Oct. 7, and the news of Putin’s attempts to aid Trump would not surface until after the election.
Trump has long disputed that the Russians interfered with the election, calling it “all a big Dem HOAX” just last week.
But on Friday evening, after the publication of The Post’s article, Trump demanded to know why Obama hadn’t done more to stop the meddling.
His first tweet read: Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?
He followed up with more tweets on Saturday, attempting to put the focus on Obama’s inaction.
One read: Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T!
The Post’s article explains in detail why Obama, who reportedly was gravely concerned by an August CIA report about the hacking, managed to approve only “largely symbolic” sanctions before he left office.
Those reasons included partisan squabbling among members of Congress, initial skepticism by other intelligence agencies about the CIA’s findings, and an assumption that Clinton would win the election and follow up. “We made the judgment that we had ample time after the election, regardless of outcome, for punitive measures,” a senior administration official said in the article.