The US government is convinced Russia interfered in the 2016 election, the operation was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it was designed to help Donald Trump win. The US intelligence community announced these conclusions in a bombshell report in January 2017.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly rejected, questioned and mischaracterized key findings from the report. Trump even publicly sided with Putin, who denies interfering, over the US intelligence agencies during their July 2018 summit in Helsinki, Finland. A day later in Washington he said he misspoke in Helsinki and did believe the intelligence community and it was Russia who meddled, but then added, “It could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”
Trump has nominally acknowledged Russian meddling on a few occasions, including Tuesday, but he has never unequivocally affirmed his support for the US intelligence report. Trump’s appointees to lead the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency have all endorsed the report. Trump’s handpicked Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, reiterated that support after the Helsinki summit.
Here are 10 ways Trump has strayed from his own intelligence agencies on Russian meddling.
Putin’s involvement in the meddling
Which candidate Russia supported
Impact on the election results
Who got hacked by the Russians
Cyberattacks against the DNC
The role of WikiLeaks
The historic nature of Russia’s actions
Russian meddling on social media
The ability to attribute cyberattacks
The agencies that wrote the report
CNN’s Caroline Kelly, Liz Stark and Austen Bundy contributed to this report. Design by Joyce Tseng.