[ad_1]
A senior election official released a statement Thursday on foreign aid acceptance campaigns in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's announcement that he was planning to collect information about opponents from other countries.
Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an excerpt of the interview broadcast Wednesday that he thought he "would take the deal" if a foreign government came to him and offered dirt to an opponent. The comment was made while the men were discussing why the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., did not visit the FBI after talking to a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower during the day. Presidential election of 2016.
The President of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, has expressed on the issue in a statement posted on Twitter to specify "100% in the eyes of the American public" that it is illegal to accept such an offer.
"This is not a new concept," Weintraub said. "The electoral intervention of foreign governments is unacceptable since the beginnings of our country."
In his statement, Weintraub went on to say that anyone accepting foreign assistance would risk a federal investigation and should report any offers to the authorities.
Trump resisted any candidate reporting to the FBI on his "secret search" offer and told Stephanopoulos that "life does not work that way".
"If I thought something was wrong, I might go to the FBI," Trump said.
Stephanopoulos then pointed out that FBI director Christopher Wray said his agency should know the contacts of foreign governments.
"The FBI director is wrong," said Trump.
Trump has been at the center of a federal inquiry into electoral interference in Russia and possible obstructions led by special advocate Robert Mueller. The 448-page report, released in April, avoided making a decision on the obstruction, but Mueller concluded Russia's interference in the 2016 elections.
House intelligence chief Adam Schiff of D-Calif., Said Thursday in response to Trump's comments that the president "has not learned anything in the last two years, nor has he taken the bad lesson ".
"The message it seems to send is this: as long as a foreign power wants to help its campaign, it can count on the good discretion it has to not alert its own FBI," Schiff said. . "And it's just dangerous, appalling, unethical, unpatriotic, name it."
Trump said Thursday that his "complete answer" to Stephanopoulos' question was not in a series of tweets in which he boasted of meeting European leaders.
"Do I have to call the FBI about these calls and meetings?" Trump wrote. "How ridiculous I would ever be trusted."
Trump, in an earlier version of the tweet, described Prince Charles as "prince of whales", but suppressed it a few minutes later.
President Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump on Thursday by saying that his remarks to Stephanopoulos showed "once again that he does not know the truth from the fake".
"It's probably the nicest thing I can say about him, because if he does not know the difference, it could partly explain his ridiculous behavior," said Pelosi. "There is no ethical sense that informs his comments and thought."
[ad_2]
Source link