President Donald Trump has accused the Obama administration of inaction over alleged Russian interference in the last year’s election.
President Trump said President Obama had learned well before the November 8 poll about the accusations and “did nothing”.
Donald Trump’s comments followed an article in the Washington Post which said that Barack Obama learned last August of President Vladimir Putin’s “direct involvement”.
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied any Russian interference into the presidential election.
According to the Washington Post article, President Obama was told early last August by sources deep within the Russian government that President Putin was directly involved in a cyber campaign to disrupt the election, injure Hillary Clinton and aid a Trump victory.
The Post said Barack Obama secretly debated dozens of options to punish Russia but in the end settled on what it called symbolic measures – the expulsion of 35 diplomats and closure of two Russian compounds. They came in late December, well after the election.
The paper reported that Barack Obama was concerned he might himself be seen as trying to manipulate the election.
The Post quoted a former administration official as saying: “From national security people there was a sense of immediate introspection, of, <<Wow, did we mishandle this>>.”
Measures President Obama had considered but which were not put into action included planting cyber weapons in the Russian infrastructure and releasing information personally damaging to Vladimir Putin.
President Trump tweeted on June 23: “The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?”
The president followed that up with two more tweets on June 24, the second saying: “Obama Administration official said they “choked” when it came to acting on Russian meddling of election. They didn’t want to hurt Hillary?”
Donald Trump repeats the argument in an interview with Fox News, which will air on June 25.
“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.”
Allegations of collusion between the Trump team and Moscow officials during the election have dogged the president’s first five months in office.
Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations, calling the investigations a “witch hunt”.
US investigators are looking into whether Russian cyber hackers targeted the electoral systems to help Donald Trump win.
Media say special counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating Donald Trump for possible obstruction of justice over the Russia inquiries.
They involve Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, who led one of the inquiries, and President Trump’s alleged attempt to end a probe into sacked national security adviser Mike Flynn.
