President Trump on Tuesday told reporters that he wanted no foreign help in the upcoming 2020 presidential election and that he hadn’t been offered any such assistance.
“I want no help from any country and I have been given no help from any country,” Trump told reporters at a press conference in New Delhi, India, when asked whether he would commit to not accepting foreign help in the election.
Trump’s remarks marked a departure from comments he made during an interview with ABC last year during which he said he may listen if he were offered dirt on an opponent from a foreign power.
Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos at the time that he might both listen to the information and alert the FBI.
“I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening,” Trump said.
The president’s remarks also come after reports emerged last week that a U.S. intelligence official had briefed members of Congress in a classified setting that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to help Trump win reelection.
The president and other White House officials have denied seeing any intelligence indicating that Moscow is intervening to help his reelection prospects. Trump has also highlighted subsequent reports indicating that the official who briefed lawmakers may have overstated the assessment of Russian interference and asserted that Democrats leaked the details as part of a “misinformation campaign.”
U.S. intelligence officials have also briefed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) campaign that Russia has sought to interfere in the primary in order to boost him.
Trump on Tuesday accused House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) of leaking details about the interference on behalf of Sanders.
“They went to see Bernie and they told Bernie,” Trump told reporters at the press conference. “Intelligence never told me … anything about that.”
“I think it was leaks from the Intelligence Committee,” Trump said. “Schiff leaked it in my opinion.”
The president suggested Democrats don’t want Sanders to win “for obvious reasons.”
It is not clear whether Congress has been briefed on any attempts by Russia to interfere in the primary on behalf of Sanders.
The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the aim of damaging Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and helping Trump, a conclusion that the president has at various points cast doubt on.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller wrote in his lengthy report on Russian interference released last year that he did not find evidence to accuse members of the 2016 Trump campaign of conspiring or coordinating with Russia but that the campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
The Democratic-controlled House impeached Trump in December for abusing his power by asking Ukraine’s president to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during a phone call in July. The phone call had prompted an intelligence community whistleblower complaint alleging Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election.
Trump, who has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in raising the Bidens on the call, was acquitted of impeachment charges by the GOP-controlled Senate last month.