Trump’s views on 2020 trigger outcry, condemnation

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s assertion that he would be open to accepting a foreign power’s help in his 2020 campaign ricocheted through Washington on Thursday, with Democrats condemning it as a call for further election interference and Republicans struggling to defend his comments.

Trump seemed to dismiss the threat posed by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, one that led to sweeping indictments by special coun- sel Robert Mueller, and his remarks come as congressional investigations into the meddling have quickened.

Asked by ABC News what he would do if Russia or another country offered him dirt on his election opponent, Trump said: “I think I’d want to hear it.” He added that he’d have no obligation to call the FBI. “There’s nothing wrong with listening.”

The Democratic denunciations were swift and overwhelming.

“It’s a very sad thing that he doesn’t know his right

from wrong,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “It’s an invasion of our democracy. Everybody in the country should be totally appalled by what the president said.”

U.S. law makes it a crime for a candidate to accept money or anything of value from foreign governments or citizens for purposes of winning an election. Many lawyers argued about whether incriminating information would qualify as a thing of value.

Pelosi said Democrats would advance legislation intended to make it a legal requirement for candidates to report to law enforcement authorities any effort by foreign governments to influence U.S. elections. She and other Democrats said it should not be necessary to write that into law, but Trump’s comments made clear there was no choice.

“The president has either learned nothing from the last two years or picked up exactly the wrong lesson that he

can accept gleefully foreign assistance again and escape the punishment of the law,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

“There is no claiming ignorance of the law anymore,” he added. “Foreign adversaries pay attention to every word the president of the United States has to say.”

Mueller documented Russian efforts to boost Trump’s campaign and undermine that of his Democratic rival. But while Mueller’s investigation didn’t establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump’s campaign, Trump repeatedly praised WikiLeaks in 2016 and at one point implored hackers to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton — “Russia, if you’re listening,” he said.

Democrats said Trump, in his interview, was essentially asking if Russia is still listening.

“This man has so little moral compass that he doesn’t understand that taking help from any foreign government during a political campaign is an assault on our democracy,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence committee.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden tweeted: “President Trump is once again welcoming foreign interference in our elections. This isn’t about politics. It is a threat to our national security. An American President should not seek their aid and abet those who seek to undermine democracy.”

For some Democrats, it all sparked fresh calls for impeachment. Announcing his support for starting such an inquiry, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said, “We must stop this lawless president from tearing down our democracy.”

Congressional Republicans struggled to strike a balance between condemning foreign interference and avoiding harsh words about the president.

“If a foreign agent or a cutout for a foreign agent approaches any American politician, they should report that to the FBI,” said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch Trump ally, said “I think it’s a mistake of law. I don’t want to send a signal to encourage this.”

But he likened Trump’s stance to Democratic support for a research firm run by British ex-spy Christopher Steele that explored Trump’s ties to Russia in the last campaign.

“The outrage some of my Democratic colleagues are raising about President Trump’s comments will hopefully be met with equal outrage that their own party hired a foreign national to do opposition research on President Trump’s campaign and that information, unverified, was apparently used by the FBI to obtain a warrant against an American citizen,” Graham said.

Taking a similar view, Iowa GOP Sen. Charles Grassley said he’s “a little astonished at the outrage” over Trump.

The Republicans’ 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, now senator from Utah, said his campaign would have immediately notified the authorities if offered foreign help. He called such interference

“unthinkable.”

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to answer questions. And Idaho Sen. Jim Risch said, “I do not want to do any interviews on that subject.”

On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates as part of its ongoing investigation.

The summons for Gates and Flynn require them to furnish documents to the panel by June 26 and appear for testimony on July 10.

Schiff said Thursday that it was “unacceptable” that neither Gates nor Flynn, both of whom pleaded guilty in Mueller’s investigation to lying to the FBI, has appeared before the Intelligence Committee.

“The American people, and the Congress, deserve to hear directly from these two critical witnesses,” Schiff said in statement.

The role of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., in organizing a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer offering negative information on Hillary Clinton was also a focus of Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the last presidential campaign. Trump Jr. spoke with the Senate Intelligence Committee for about three hours Wednesday to clarify an earlier interview with the committee’s staff.

Last month, Trump pledged not to use information stolen by foreign adversaries in his 2020 re-election campaign.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that Trump Jr., as an organizer of the meeting with the Russian, should have called his agency to report the episode.

But Trump, who picked Wray to lead the FBI in 2017, told ABC News that he disagrees.

“The FBI director is wrong,” Trump said. “Life doesn’t work like that.”

Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Lemire, Lisa Mascaro, Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Alan Fram, Elana Schor and Padmananda Rama of The Associated Press; by Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; and by Karoun Demirjian, Rosalind S. Helderman and Spencer Hsu of The Washington Post.