Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Donald Trump launches fresh attack on Barack Obama as he asks 'why no action' on Russian
election meddling .Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack
on former President Barack Obama accusing the former president of failing to act on
Russian "meddling" during the election last year.
Lashing out at Mr Obama on Twitter, the President wrote: “Since the Obama Administration was
told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action?
Focus on them, not T!”
The tweet came a day after the Washington Post detailed the Obama administration's cautious
approach to punishing the Russian government for its hacking campaign - apparently signed
off by Russian President Vladimir Putin - intended to politically damage Hillary Clinton and
swing the election in Mr Trump's favour.
The Obama administration is believed to have found out about the hacking in August 2016,
but officials were wary of releasing the information to the public for fear of being accused of
interfering in the election themselves.
One official claimed that the administration had "sort of choked" in not acting more quickly,
a point Mr Trump jumped on in a second tweet: “Obama Administration official said they
‘choked’ when it came to acting on Russian meddling of election.
They didn't want to hurt Hillary?”
The slow response by the Obama administration was also a result of confidence in Ms Clinton’s
campaign winning the election.
Throughout the fall, as November crept closer, Democrats saw many signs that their candidate
would ultimately win: She had three strong debate performances against Mr Trump, polls
showed her with an impressive lead most of the time, and Mr Trump appeared to have an
incredible capacity for inflicting harm on his campaign just by making controversial
remarks on stage.
The Obama administration considered retaliatory measures against Moscow after they learned
about the extent of the meddling, including potentially compiling a personal dossier on
Vladimir Putin that could be released to embarrass him.
They also considered planting “cyber weapons” in Russian infrastructure that could harm
those services.
They ultimately landed on modest sanctions, and expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the
country in December - a decision some have criticised.
The latest tweets by Mr Trump appear part of a strategy to raise the Obama administrations'
role in investigating the hacking, with the current President's White House facing daily
questions about a number of investigations into the meddling, and possible links to the
Trump campaign.
Having previously not produced a straight answer about whether he believed Russia had
tried to hack the Presidential election, Mr Trump tweeted on Friday: "The Obama Administration
knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia.
Did nothing about it.
WHY?".
That coincided with a video clip being released by the Fox network of an interview with the
President where Mr Trump saying that "nobody wants to talk" about the Obama administration
and the hacking.
“Well I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before
the election, and he did nothing about it,” Mr Trump said in an excerpt of his interview
on Fox News' Fox and Friends programme, which is due to be aired in full on Sunday.
“But nobody wants to talk about that.”
“The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even — before the
election,” Mr Trump added.
“And I hardly see it.
It's an amazing thing.
To me, 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.
But you don't read that.
It's quite sad.”
A Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, has taken over an FBI investigation into the Russian
interference - after Mr Trump fired the then-FBI Director James Comey last month.
Multiple congressional committees are also currently investigating Russia's role in the
election, as well as possible collusion between the Mr Trump campaign and Moscow.
Mr Mueller is said to be investigating Mr trump over potential obstruction of justice
over his firing of Mr Comey abd here have been reports that Mr Trump had talked privately
about potentially firing Mr Mueller.
When asked on Friday whether he believed Mr Mueller should recuse himself over his friendship
with Mr Comey.
Mr Trump told the Fox News Channel "we'll have to see" and his repeatedly denied any
obstruction of justice.
Mr Trump called the friendship between Mr Comey and Mr Mueller "bothersome" but said
Mr Mueller was an "honourable man".
The White House later said Mr Trump had no intention of asking for Mr Mueller to be fired.
The President has denied any coordination between his team and Russian officials and
has branded the investigations a “witch hunt”, claiming they are intended to hamper
the work of his administration.
Thank you listen! please subscribe to check news.
Please turn on subtitle if you can't hear voice clearly.
I'm Adam.