WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump, in a series of angry and defiant tweets Sunday morning, sought to shift the blame to Democrats for Russia’s virtual war to meddle in the 2016 election, saying President Barack Obama had not done enough to stop the interference.
The president also denied he had ever suggested Moscow might not have been involved.
Trump, who has said little to publicly acknowledge a threat to US democracy that even one of his top aides called “incontrovertible’’ on Saturday, asserted that the efforts to investigate and combat the Russian meddling had only given the Russians what they wanted, saying that “they are laughing their asses off in Moscow.’’
“If it was the goal of Russia to create discord, disruption, and chaos within the US then, with all of the committee hearings, investigations and party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,’’ Trump wrote.
At his Florida estate, the president spent the weekend stewing over news coverage of an indictment last week against more than a dozen Russians by Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading an investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.
The indictment says that while the Russians began their scheme in 2014 with the goal of undermining the US democratic system, they eventually shifted their focus to trying to help elect Trump and disparage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The president has repeatedly seized on the fact that the efforts started before he became a candidate but has glossed over the conclusion that they evolved toward supporting his candidacy. The indictment does not assert any wrongdoing by the president or his affiliates.
In another tweet Sunday, Trump, who has tried since the campaign to sow doubts about who was behind the election intrusions, said he had “never said Russia did not meddle in the election,’’ quoting a comment he made in a 2016 debate. “I said it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,’’ Trump wrote. “The Russian ‘hoax’ was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia — it never did!’’
Yet he has repeatedly denied Russia was behind any meddling, even going so far in November as to suggest he believed President Vladimir Putin’s denials of interference, rather than the conclusions of US intelligence agencies.
“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,’’ Trump said at the time, calling questions about Moscow’s meddling a politically motivated “hit job.’’
Trump has long fought the idea that Moscow’s efforts might have influenced the election, viewing it as a threat to his legitimacy. He has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront the Russians for their intrusion.
On Sunday, Trump praised remarks by one of his chief antagonists, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, that criticized Obama’s muted response to the Russian threat. But at the same time he called the congressman “the leakin’ monster of no control.’’
“Now that Adam Schiff is starting to blame President Obama for Russian meddling in the election, he is probably doing so as yet another excuse that the Democrats, lead by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election,’’ Trump wrote.
On Saturday, the president’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said, referring to Russian meddling, “With the FBI indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain.’’
Trump criticized McMaster for not saying the election results had not been changed by Russian interference. The intelligence agencies say it’s not possible to make such a conclusion.
