President Trump said Friday that federal charges against a Russian operative for meddling in U.S. elections “had nothing to do with my campaign.”
“All of the hackers, and everybody that you see, nothing to do with my campaign,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “If they are hackers, a lot of them probably liked Hillary Clinton better than me. Now they do.”
The Justice Department filed charges Friday against lena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, for involvement in a Russian “troll farm” that the U.S. says used social media to stir anger and resentment in the 2016 campaign and beyond. The charges are the first to be brought in connection with meddling in the midterm elections.
Mr. Trump said his predecessor, Barack Obama, “did nothing about it, because he thought Hillary Clinton would win.”
“He didn’t lift a finger — he didn’t spend a dime,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve done a lot to protect the elections coming up very shortly. But President Obama, people don’t want to bring it up. The ’fake news’ don’t want to bring it up. President Obama was told in September [2016] by the FBI that there could be problems with Russian meddling.”
He said various investigations have found no evidence of collusion between his presidential campaign and Moscow.
“The good news is it never affected, whatever did take place, never affected the vote,” Mr. Trump said. “And everybody agrees to that. Never affected the vote. The candidate affected the vote — the bad candidate. She should have gone to Wisconsin. She should have gone more to North Carolina; Pennsylvania; Michigan, Florida. She should have gone out a little bit more. She had to work a little bit harder. That affected the vote.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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