Trump acknowledges Russian meddling, blasts Obama
President Trump appeared to acknowledge that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election — but only so he could blame former President Barack Obama.
“Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?” Trump tweet- ed Friday night.
This is a rare instance in which the president has acknowledged what the intelligence community and bipartisan members of Congress already have, which is that Russia attempted to interfere with the presidential election.
Until Friday, Trump had remained vague about whether he believes the Russians meddled. Earlier last week, he said on Twitter that talk of the alleged meddling was “all a big Dem HOAX!” and “excuse for losing the election!”
“I have not sat down and talked with him about that specific thing,” press sec- retary Sean Spicer told reporters earlier in the week after being asked whether Trump believed the Russian government interfered. Conversations about Russian interference have been going on for nearly a year, and that’s now being investigated by multiple congressional committees and a special counsel.
But after a Washington Post report Friday, Trump seemed to have changed his approach. The Post published a lengthy investigation of how the Obama administration had handled discoveries that the Russians were attempting to influence the outcome of the 2016 elec- tion, showing the handwringing that officials went through on how to respond and when to alert the public.
While Obama did authorize a cyber operation that would make it possible to retaliate against Russia, it was still in the early stages when Trump took office.
In an interview with Fox News set to air Sunday, Trump said: “I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it. ... The question is, if he had the information, why didn’t he do something about it? He should have done something about it.”