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President Trump in a tweet early today acknowledged for the first time that Russia aided his campaign during the 2016 election.

The tweet was in response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s statement yesterday that there could be evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Trump later in the day took the comment back.

“No, Russia did not help me get elected,” Trump told reporters.

Even for a president known for contradicting himself, Trump’s divergent statements before leaving on a trip to Colorado were particularly head-spinning and underscored his fitful responses to the report issued by Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Even if Trump’s remark was inadvertent, it was a stunning admission because he has previously refused to agree with the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow’s interference effort was designed to help him win.

In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, Trump said he declined to confront him on election interference and that they both dismissed the “Russian Hoax.”

Mueller in his comments yesterday stressed that his investigation uncovered “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election,” something he said “deserves the attention of every American.”

But Trump was focused on bashing Mueller and claiming vindication, telling reporters today that the special counsel was “conflicted” and should “should have never been chosen” for the job while attacking the probe as “a giant presidential harassment.”

Trump revived personal attacks on Mueller, asserting he had failed to get the job he really wanted, F.B.I. director, an accusation addressed and countered in Mueller’s final report.

Mueller, who previously served as F.B.I. director in two administrations, did not go to the White House looking for a job, Steve Bannon, who was one of the president’s senior advisers at the time, told investigators.

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.”

Don McGahn, who was then Trump’s White House counsel, likewise considered the supposed conflicts to be “silly” and hardly disqualifying, according to the report.

Taking aim at congressional Democrats weighing impeachment, Trump said he does not see how they could make that move, calling it “a dirty, filthy, disgusting word.”

 

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