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| Trump appears to say Russia is not still targeting the U.S. |
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THE BIG IDEA: President Trump found himself at odds on Wednesday with his own people who work at Foggy Bottom, Fort Meade, Langley, the Pentagon and the brutalist J. Edgar Hoover Building.
At the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last night, FBI Director Christopher Wray responded to Trump’s wishy-washy and inconsistent statements about festering Russian interference in the American political system.
“He’s got his view. He’s expressed his view,” Wray said. “The intelligence community’s assessment has not changed. My view has not changed, which is that Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and that it continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.”
Wray, who Trump tapped after he fired James Comey, defended the ongoing federal investigation into whether the president obstructed justice and whether his 2016 campaign colluded with the Kremlin. “I do not believe special counsel [Robert] Mueller is on a ‘witch hunt,’” he said. “I think it's a professional investigation conducted by a man that I've known to be a straight shooter.”
NBC anchor Lester Holt asked if he’s ever considered resigning, as has been reported. Wray did not say no. “I'm a low-key, understated guy, but that should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of,” he said. “I'll just leave it at that.”
It was a stunning ending to another stunning day. Columnist Karen Tumulty calls what’s transpired since Trump left Finland his “worst moment since Charlottesville.”
Earlier Wednesday, the president said “no” twice when a reporter asked him if he believes Russia continues to target the United States. That directly conflicts with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats’s declaration last week that “the warning lights are blinking red again,” comparing the threat matrix to the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks. Coats, a longtime Republican senator from Indiana, said during another appearance on Monday that Russia’s efforts to undermine U.S. democracy are “ongoing and pervasive.”
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| White House says Trump was saying 'no' to more questions |
Two hours later, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that the president was actually just saying "no" to taking questions, not that he was regurgitating Vladimir Putin’s talking points or retracting his post-Helsinki retraction. In fact, Trump continued to take questions from reporters after answering “no.” The ABC News correspondent who asked Trump the original question pushed back on Sanders’s spin.
From the ABC News reporter who asked Trump about ongoing election interference:
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Fox News didn’t buy it either. A chyron on the president’s favorite channel blared: “Try, try again: White House and Trump offer different responses on Russia.”
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| Trump says he holds Putin responsible for election meddling |
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