WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Saturday scolded the Obamaadministration for not responding aggressively enough to Russian hacking ofDemocratic targets in the 2016 US election – cyberattacks underpinning theindictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers.
Trump’s first response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s initial chargesagainst Russian government officials for interfering in American politicscame in tweets the president posted while at his golf resort in Scotland,two days before a high-stakes summit in Finland with Russian leaderVladimir Putin.
“The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place duringthe Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration,” Trump tweeted.”Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reportedthat President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before theElection?
The indictment announced on Friday said the Russians hacked into HillaryClinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tensof thousands of private communications as part of a broad conspiracy by theKremlin to meddle in an American election that ended up putting Trump inthe White House.
US intelligence agencies have said Moscow was aiming to help the Trumpcampaign and harm Clinton’s bid.
Trump said this past week during his trip to Europe that he would”absolutely, firmly” raise the election-meddling issue with Putin at theirmeeting, though he added, “I don’t think you’ll have any ‘Gee, I did it, Idid it. You got me!'” Leading Democratic senators asked Trump in a letteron Saturday to scrap the summit “if you are not prepared to make Russia’sattack on our election the top issue you will discuss.”
Trump’s secretary of state, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, said he wasconfident the meeting “will put America in a better place. It’s veryimportant that they meet.”The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans voted inNovember 2016, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic emailaccounts, including those belonging to Clinton’s campaign chairman, JohnPodesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton,appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign’s final stretch.
The charges say the Russian defendants, using a persona known as Guccifer2.0, in August 2016 contacted a person in touch with the Trump campaign tooffer help. And they say that on the same day Trump, in a speech, urgedRussia to find Clinton’s missing emails, Russian hackers tried for thefirst time to break into email accounts used by her personal office.
Mueller did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in thehacking effort, that Americans were knowingly in touch with Russianintelligence officers or that any vote tallies were altered by hacking.
Trump has repeatedly expressed scepticism about Russian involvement in thehacking while being accused by Democrats of cozying up to Putin.
Trump, hours before the indictment was made public, complained about theRussia investigation hours, saying the “stupidity” was making it “very hardto do something with Russia.”