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Donald Trump today, yet again this morning, questioned whether Russia interfered in the 2016 US election.
While it’s been an established fact for a while now, Trump has vacillated on the issue for months.
Here’s what Trump said this morning on Twitter:
When asked this week whether Trump believes Russia interfered, White House spokesman Sean Spicer claimed, incredibly, that he hadn’t spoken to Trump about it.
A second White House spokesman claimed that Trump already answered the question this past January. And he did. Trump then proceeded to change his story every time he got asked about it.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen did a great write-up of everything Trump has said about Russian interference:
June 15, 2016: Trump campaign says DNC hacked itself.
September 8, 2016: On Russian TV, Trump “dismissed claims Russia hacked the DNC.”
September 27, 2016: “I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China, but it could also be lots of other people, it also could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?”
October 10, 2016: “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are — she doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia because they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia.”
December 11, 2016: “I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean, they have no idea.”
December 15, 2016: “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?”
January 3, 2017: “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!”
January 4, 2017: “Somebody hacked the DNC.”
January 5, 2017: Trump says DNC was “supposedly hacked by Russia.”
January 11, 2017: Trump finally says he thinks it was Russia. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”
April 30, 2017: Trump is back to questioning whether Russia actually did it. “Knowing something about hacking, if you don’t catch a hacker, OK, in the act, it’s very hard to say who did the hacking. With that being said, I’ll go along with Russia. Could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups.”
May 11, 2017: “If Russia hacked.”
If Russia hacked, if Russia did anything having to do with our election I want to know about it,” Trump said. When Hold said US intelligence has said Russia is responsible, Trump said: “I’ll tell you this — if Russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections I think it’s a horrible thing and I want to get to the bottom of it and I want to make sure it will never ever happen.”
And now, this morning, Trump is still saying “if.”
In fact, we now now that Russia tried to hack the election system in 21 states. And they tried to alter voter data. That’s huge. That’s our worst fear, that the Russians tried to literally cheat the election by changing voter data. And we now know they did tried to do just that.
But what’s even more important, they’ve tried to interfere in the UK, Italian and French elections, and US officials believe the Russians will try to interfere in future US elections as well. So it’s hugely important, and hugely dangerous, that Trump is still denying that Russia even did anything. You can’t have the US prepare for a future Russian election attack if the president is claiming it never happened.
And Trump wonders why he’s being investigated for possible collusion with Russia.
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