US President Donald Trump finally acknowledges Russian meddling in presidential election – but blames Barack Obama
A report in The Washington Post claims the CIA had top-level intelligence last August that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an operation to help Donald Trump win the US presidential race
US President Donald Trump has finally acknowledged Russian interference in last year’s presidential election – but immediately blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for not taking action.
“Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?” Trump posted on Twitter.
In an interview with Fox News programme Fox and Friends that will air on Sunday, Trump complained that Obama’s response did not get more media coverage.
“The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even – before the election. And I hardly see it. It’s an amazing thing,” Trump said in an excerpt released by the programme on Friday.
“If he had the information, why didn’t he do something about it? He should have done something about it. But you don’t read that. It’s quite sad.”
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 “phoney story”.