US president Donald Trump has shown “very concerned” that Russia could try to manipulate US congressional elections in November – in favor of opposition Democrats. Since no or US president has ever been “tougher” than he was to Russia, Moscow will “strongly advocate Democrats,” wrote Trump on Twitter. The Russian government wanted “definitely not Trump”.
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With his tweet, US president apparently tried to steer debate on Russian campaign interventions in a new direction. After all, hacker attacks in presidential campaign 2016, which were based on knowledge of US intelligence services of Russia, had turned against Democrats and thus used Trump.
Through attacks, internal mail bills had become known to Democrats with partly some very sensitive content. This brought Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton in distress.
At his meeting with Trump on Monday last week, Russian head of state, Vladimir Putin, frankly conceded that he wanted Trump’s election victory. As a reason, Putin mentioned that Trump had identified an improvement in relations with Moscow as a target.
Critique of Trump’s meeting with Putin
Trump has been exposed to massive criticism since Helsinki Summit because he had avoided condemning alleged Russian campaign interventions at joint press conference with Putin. Instead, US president gave impression that intelligence of his own secret services and Putin’s assurance that Russia had nothing to do with hacker attacks would give same weight.
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Critics, too, from ranks of his own party, Trump accused Putin of a much too lenient deal. The US president, after his defense, claimed to have promised at press conference. He also said in an interview with CBS News that, during his four-eye conversation with Russian head of state, he made it “very clear” to know that “we cannot interfere”.
The special investigator Robert Mueller, established by US Department of Justice, has been investigating not only alleged Russian interventions during electoral campaign for more than a year, but also possible collusion between Moscow and Trump employees. Trump had always defamed his investigation as a “witch hunt.”