Trump Tweets, and Then Retracts, Statement That Russia Helped Him Get Elected - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump tweeted on Thursday that Russia helped “me to get elected,” and then quickly retracted the idea.

“No, Russia did not help me get elected,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Colorado Springs. “I got me elected.” He spoke less than an hour after his Twitter post.

The original comment, a clause in one of several Twitter posts this morning, is an extraordinary admission from Mr. Trump, who has avoided saying publicly that Russia helped him win the presidency in 2016 through its election interference. American intelligence agencies and federal prosecutors have long concluded that Russia tried to influence voters.

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. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media,.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019

Mr. Trump has been reluctant to fully embrace the intelligence agencies’ findings that Russia was behind the 2016 election interference, but he has consistently argued that he alone was responsible for his unexpected victory. The “Russia hoax,” Mr. Trump has argued, is one fabricated by Democrats who are angry they lost the White House.

The president’s contradictory statements on Thursday morning arrived a day after the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, spoke publicly for the first time about his investigation’s findings. The president and his critics had conflicting interpretations about Mr. Mueller’s brief remarks — Mr. Trump and his supporters took them to mean “case closed,” while his critics saw them as a call to impeachment.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Mr. Trump revived personal attacks on Mr. Mueller, asserting that the special counsel should never have been chosen for that position — he was “highly conflicted” — and had failed to get the job he really wanted, F.B.I. director, an allegation addressed and countered in Mr. Mueller’s final report. Mr. Mueller, who had previously served in that role in two administrations, did not go to the White House looking for a job, one of president’s senior advisers, Stephen K. Bannon, told investigators.

Mr. Bannon, the report said, “recalled telling the president that the purported conflicts were ‘ridiculous’ and that none of them was real or could come close to justifying precluding Mueller from serving as special counsel.”

“I think Mueller is a true never Trumper,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday. “He is somebody that dislikes Donald Trump, he’s somebody that didn’t get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed.”

Yet when Mr. Trump initially learned about Mr. Mueller’s appointment, his first thought was not about conflicts of interest. “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency,” Mr. Trump said, according to the special counsel report.

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