Offering no evidence, Trump says Russia will favor Democrats
WASHINGTON — Under pressure to show he’s taking the threat of Russian interference seriously, President Donald Trump claimed without evidence Tuesday that Moscow will be “fighting very hard” to help Democrats win in the 2018 midterm elections.
Mr. Trump, who has offered mixed messages on Russian interference in U. S. elections — at times even calling it a “hoax” — acknowledged in a tweet that the midterms are a likely target.
“I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election,” the president wrote. But he added “they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!”
That’s despite Russian President Vladimir Putin saying outright last week, following the leaders’ summit in Helsinki, that he wanted Mr. Trump to win in 2016. U. S. intelligence agencies also have determined that Russia interfered in the election to help him win, and the agencies have warned there are ominous signs of more cyberattacks to come.
In another election matter Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeated the phrase “lock her up” during a speech to conservative high school students, chuckling as the crowd began a chant that Trump supporters used during the 2016 campaign to call for jailing Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Sessions, the country’s top law enforcement official, was speaking at a fourday conference hosted by the conservative organization Turning Point USA and attended by several hundred right- leaning high school students in Washington. In his speech, he sharply criticized American universities, saying they were coddling students and creating a “generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes.”
When members of the audience began chanting “lock her up,” a common refrain at Trump rallies after the Republican candidate pledged to enlist a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sessions briefly strayed from his prepared remarks.
“Lock her up,” he said, laughing. “I heard that a long time over the last campaign.”
As Mr. Trump tweeted Tuesday, House Republicans held a hearing on election security in which lawmakers — even some of Trump’s closest GOP allies — strongly criticized Russian interference and pointed to an indictment this month of 12 Russian intelligence officers. The indictment alleges that the Russians broke into Democratic email accounts and tried to penetrate state election systems.
Christopher Krebs of the Homeland Security Department said the intelligence community has observed “continued malign influence operations” into 2018, though they do not appear to be “an effort at the same scope or scale” as in 2016.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy noted that the indictment said there is no evidence the vote count was affected, “but that was not likely for a lack of trying.”