Sa Something About President Trumps Mafia Times Again
Trump Says 'I'd Take It' if Russia Again Offered Clay on Opponent
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that there would exist nothing incorrect with accepting incriminating information about an ballot opponent from Russia or other strange governments and that he saw no reason to call the F.B.I. if it were to happen again.
"It's not an interference," he said in an interview with ABC News, describing information technology every bit "opposition enquiry." "They have information — I think I'd accept it." He would call the F.B.I. only "if I thought at that place was something wrong."
[ On Thursday, Mr. Trump equated taking dirt from Russian federation with presidential diplomacy .]
His comments put him at odds not only with Democratic candidates who take made a indicate of forswearing help from foreign governments as they seek their party's nomination to challenge him but too with his own F.B.I. director, Christopher Due south. Wray, who has said politicians in such circumstances should call his agency.
"I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the F.B.I. In my whole life," Mr. Trump said dismissively. "Yous don't call the F.B.I. You throw somebody out of your office, y'all do any y'all do." He added, "Give me a break — life doesn't work that way."
When the interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, noted that the F.B.I. managing director has said a candidate should call, Mr. Trump snapped, "The F.B.I. director is wrong."
The president's remarks came on the aforementioned day that his son Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Capitol Loma to reply questions from lawmakers. During the 2016 entrada, the younger Mr. Trump — forth with Jared Kushner, the hereafter president's son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, then his campaign chairman — met with a Kremlin-continued lawyer after being told she would accept "dirt" on Hillary Clinton as "function of Russia and its authorities's back up for Mr. Trump."
The president has previously dedicated the conclusion to have the meeting on the grounds that any campaign would mind to opposition research, even from a foreign adversary. Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, ended in his contempo report that Russia made a concerted effort to help Mr. Trump go elected and that Mr. Trump's entrada benefited from it, only he established no illegal conspiracy between the two.
Mr. Trump has sought to narrate Mr. Mueller's report as complete exoneration. He took it a step further on Wednesday during an earlier meeting with reporters when he claimed that Mr. Mueller'south report actually said that "we rebuffed them" when the Russians tried to help.
Mr. Trump's lawyer did not respond to a request request what the president was referring to. In actuality, Mr. Mueller's study documented numerous contacts between Mr. Trump's campaign and Russian figures throughout the 2016 campaign.
In testimony to Congress last month, Mr. Wray, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, said campaigns should report it if they hear from strange governments. "I think my view is that if whatsoever public official or member of any campaign is contacted by any nation state or anybody acting on behalf of a nation state about influencing or interfering with our ballot, and then that'southward something that the F.B.I. would desire to know about," Mr. Wray said.
When pressed during the interview, Mr. Trump allowed that maybe he would call the F.B.I. but just after listening to the incriminating information first. "I think maybe you do both," he said, calculation: "There's aught wrong with listening. If somebody called from a land, Kingdom of norway, 'we take information on your opponent' — oh, I think I'd want to hear it."
His answer mirrored one given recently past Mr. Kushner, who said he was not sure he would call the F.B.I. if a foreign government again offered damaging data nearly an opponent. "I don't know," he said in an interview with Axios, an online news arrangement. "It'due south hard to do hypotheticals, but the reality is is that we were not given anything that was salacious."
Information technology was the second time in recent weeks that Mr. Trump has publicly chided Mr. Wray. Later on the F.B.I. director rejected the word "spying" to describe the bureau's investigation of contacts betwixt Russia and the Trump campaign, Mr. Trump lashed out. "I thought information technology was a ridiculous answer," Mr. Trump said last month.
Mr. Trump on Wednesday also disputed an article in The New York Times reporting that his internal polling showed him trailing Democrats in cardinal states. "We are winning in every single country that nosotros polled," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "We're winning in Texas very big, we're winning in Ohio very large. We're winning in Florida very big. They were fake polls that were either put out by the corrupt media."
Mr. Trump's claim to Mr. Stephanopoulos that he never in his life called the F.B.I. conflicts with past reports. In 2017, BuzzFeed reported on a 1981 F.B.I. memo that described how Mr. Trump, as a existent manor developer, contacted the bureau about a casino he was considering opening in Atlantic Metropolis. He offered to "fully cooperate" with the bureau and suggested that F.B.I. agents piece of work undercover in the casino to root out any mafia elements.
millerlecladmands.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/trump-russia-fbi.html
0 Response to "Sa Something About President Trumps Mafia Times Again"
Post a Comment