Trump under fire over poll meddling comments

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday faced a barrage of criticism from his opponents and even from his own party for not backing the American intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections won by him.

Sharply reacting to Trump’s joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki after their first formal summit meeting, his critics said the President refused to stand up for the country he was elected to represent and protect.

When asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or President Putin when it came to allegations of meddling in the election, Trump said, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Trump met with Putin one-on-one for more than two hours and in a session with aides present.

In his comments, Trump downplayed the assessment of the US intelligence community that Moscow mounted an effort to help him win the presidency in 2016, blasted the American news media, bashed the FBI and the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling.

Trump’s own intelligence chief publicly broke with him.

Russia is responsible for “ongoing, pervasive attempts” to undermine US democracy, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a statement.

“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security,” Coats said.

The press conference in Helsinki was “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American President in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naivete, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” said Republican Senator John McCain, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee.

“But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake,” he said.

“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the President made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world,” McCain said.