White House press secretary Sarah Sanders pushed back Wednesday on suggestions that President Trump rejects the intelligence community's assessment that Russians sought to sway public opinion during the presidential race, and said the White House position is that Trump had nothing to do with it, and didn't benefit from it.
"The accusation against the president is that he had help winning the election, and that's simply untrue," Sanders told reporters at the White House. "The president won because he was the better candidate, because he worked harder, because he had a message that America actually cared about and believed in and came out in an historic fashion and supported and voted for him."
Sanders dismissed allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians in their efforts to sway the election as a "made-up hoax."
The White House and Trump himself have consistently maintained that no one on the campaign coordinated with Russians in any of their efforts to tip the election, including hacking into Democratic inboxes and distributing sensitive emails.
But Sanders specified that Trump's rejection of collusion allegations does not mean he rejects the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia did meddle in the election, and she argued the president's critics have attempted to conflate the two in order to damage Trump.
"I think those are very different things," she said. "Stating the existence of something happening is very different than having helped make it happen. And you can't conflate the two. I think often times that's what individuals are trying to do."
Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of alleged collusion was a focus once more in Washington this week, as investigators seek to interview former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and the president himself. Last week, Mueller's team sat down with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from Russia-related matters.
