President Donald Trump appeared to admit that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election in a Friday night tweet in which he criticized Barack Obama for his handling of Russia's cybertattacks that were meant to swing the election away from Hillary Clinton.
"Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY," Trump asked.
The heads of several US intelligence agencies issued a statement formally accusing Russia of trying to interfere in the election on October 7 last year.
The FBI and several congressional committees are running multipronged investigations of possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia and potential obstruction of justice by Trump. The president has repeatedly called the probe a "witch hunt" and a "phony story."
On Friday, Trump also said in an interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" that Obama "knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it."
"The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even â before the election," Trump said. "To me â in other words, the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? He should have done something about it."
Other Obama administration officials defended their efforts to counteract Russia's activities.
scaryterrysnightmare on June 24th, 2017 at 12:10 UTC »
its weird to think trumps twitter could be discussed in history classes
GotMoFans on June 24th, 2017 at 11:32 UTC »
See, I never just did things just to do them. Come on, what am I gonna do? Just all of a sudden jump up and grind my feet on somebody's couch like it's something to do? Come on. I got a little more sense then that. ...Yeah, I remember grinding my feet on Eddie's couch.
J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS on June 24th, 2017 at 08:59 UTC »
The tweet in question:
Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?
Previous tweets completely denying it:
The Democrats had to come up with a story as to why they lost the election, and so badly (306), so they made up a story - RUSSIA. Fake news! (16 Feb 2017)
Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks! (26 Feb 2017)
Russia must be laughing up their sleeves watching as the U.S. tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election. (11 May 2017)