Trump Questions US Intelligence and Not Putin on Election Meddling

Donald Trump said that the probe was a disaster for the US & that there was no collusion during the 2016 elections.

Standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump openly questioned his own intelligence agencies’ conclusions that Moscow was to blame for meddling in the 2016 US election to Trump’s benefit and seemed to accept Putin’s insistence that Russia’s hands were clean.

After a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, 16 July, American president Trump said:

US President who had earlier called the investigation a “witch-hunt” said that he beat Hillary Clinton and there was no doubt about it.

Donald trump then went on to say that he has great confidence in the intelligence agency of his country but he believed what Putin said about no involvement in the 2016 elections.

He then went on to question the FBI.

Trump once again raked the issue of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Taking a dig at the 33,000 private emails that were deleted, Trump said, “What happened to Hillary Clinton's emails – 33,000 just gone, gone.”

Trump also took to Twitter to hit out at former US President Barack Obama and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn’t happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it. When I won it became a big deal and the Rigged Witch Hunt headed by Strzok!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2018

Donald Trump said that the allegations of Russia meddling with the US presidential elections have had negative impact on the relationship of the two countries.

On Russia Having Compromising Material On Trump

Reiterating his stance and standing in support of Russia once again, Donald Trump said that if Russian government would have had anything on him, that would have been out long back.

12 Russians Indicted by US Grand Jury

Trump-Putin meet comes after a US federal grand jury on Friday, 13 July charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016. This is the most detailed US accusation that Moscow meddled in the presidential election to help Republican Donald Trump.

The indictment was secured by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his probe into Russian involvement in the election.

However, the Russian foreign ministry denied charges and said that there was no evidence that the 12 people mentioned were linked to military intelligence or hacking.

(With inputs from AP and Reuters)