Donald Trump acknowledges that Russia helped him win the 2016 election

President Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning to slam special counsel Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt.”

“Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax…And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist,” he said.

“So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media, say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false acquisition, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it. Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment,” he said.

Mr. Trump later walked back his admittance of Russian involvement while speaking to a pool of reporters as he was leaving the White House.

“You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia, if anything, helped the other side,” he said, repeating the Russia investigation was a “hoax.”

Mr. Trump also said on Twitter Thursday that Mr. Mueller would have brought charges against him if he found evidence in his investigation into potential collusion and obstruction.

“The Greatest Presidential Harassment in history. After spending $40,000,000 over two dark years, with unlimited access, people, resources and cooperation, highly conflicted Robert Mueller would have brought charges, if he had ANYTHING, but there were no charges to bring,” the president tweeted.

Mr. Mueller, in a statement to reporters Wednesday, said Justice Department policy precludes charging or prosecuting a president for federal crimes, so he didn’t make a determination on whether crimes were committed.

But Mr. Mueller added, “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”