WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Pres Donald Trump and Russia both angrily dismissed US intelligence’s account that Moscow is meddling in this year’s election as Democrats accused the president of betraying democracy.
US intelligence chief Joseph Maguire, whom Trump replaced on Wednesday with a loyal partisan lacking direct experience in the field, warned lawmakers of Russian interference in a classified briefing last week.
The US intelligence community publicly concluded that Russia intervened in 2016, including by manipulating social media, but Maguire reportedly revealed that Moscow wanted Trump to be re-elected and was meddling in the Democratic Party’s primaries.
Trump, who has repeatedly shown irritation at assertions that Russia helped him win the White House, denounced the latest assertions as the work of the rival party.
“Another misinformation campaign is being launched by Democrats in Congress saying that Russia prefers me to any of the Do Nothing Democrat candidates who still have been unable to, after two weeks, count their votes in Iowa,” Trump tweeted, referring to the debacle in releasing results from the Democrats’ first contest.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the allegations were “like the usual paranoid announcements, which unfortunately will multiply as we get closer to the election.”
“Of course, they have nothing to do with the truth,” he said.
President Vladimir Putin, however, acknowledged when he met Trump in July 2018 that he supported the populist billionaire’s campaign, seeing him as friendlier to Moscow than rival Hillary Clinton.
An extensive report by former FBI chief Robert Mueller found that Russia intervened to back Trump but did not conclude that the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow.
Trump was later impeached in a separate scandal over holding back military aid to Ukraine, which is fighting Russian-backed separatists, to pressure the Kiev government to dig up dirt on a Democratic candidate.
The Senate, led by Trump’s Republican Party, acquitted him on Feb 6, after which the president swiftly removed officials who provided evidence against him. — NNN-AGENCIES
