President Trump on Monday blamed the “ridiculous” U.S. investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election for the rift between the two countries.
“The probe is a disaster for our country,” Trump said, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation. “I think it’s kept us separated. There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it.”
“The main thing is zero collusion, and it has had a negative impact upon the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin after the two met one-on-one for several hours.
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Trump’s comments come just days after Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic servers during the 2016 campaign.
“It was a clean campaign,” Trump said on Monday. “We won that race, and it’s a shame that there can be even a little bit of a cloud over it.”
Putin on Monday denied that his country interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections during his talks with Trump. The U.S. intelligence community previously determined that Russia interfered with U.S. elections.
On Monday, Trump said he has “confidence in both parties,” referring to both the U.S. intelligence community and Putin.
Trump has refused to condemn Putin or Russia in the aftermath of the indictments, instead blaming the Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee for not doing more to stop the attacks.