President Trump appears to go full circle, again calling out Russia 'hoax'
The White House has made many clarifications on statements about Trump, Russia.
It was just last week that President Trump sought to clarify that he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did, in fact, meddle in the 2016 presidential election, after he previously seemed to accept President Vladimir Putin’s denials in Helsinki.
But the president appeared to again go full circle on the issue in a tweet Sunday night in which he questioned why Obama didn’t take action against Russia in 2016 if the U.S. government was aware of it and calling it out as a “big hoax.”
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders sought to clarify the president’s tweet Monday morning by arguing that the president wasn’t expressing doubt on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled but was instead “referring to the claim that his campaign had anything to do with it.”
This is the latest in a series of clarifications on the topic of Russia by the White House over the course of the last seven days since President Trump’s summit meeting with Putin where he expressed that he had “confidence in both parties,” referring to the US and Russia.
“President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be,” the president said last Monday.
Then on Tuesday, Trump issued a rare clarification and said he misspoke.
"In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word would instead of wouldn't, the sentence should have been, ‘I don't see any reason why it wouldn't,’ or why it wouldn't be Russia,” he said.
Then on Wednesday, the White House sought to clarify President Donald Trump's comments on whether Russia targeted the U.S., saying that the president's "no" as ABC News' Cecilia Vega asked her question twice was actually a "no" to taking reporters' questions.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats who, in a recent Hudson Institute speech warned of Russian cyber attacks saying: "The warning lights are blinking red again."
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