Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would be willing to accept information from a foreign country on his opponent in the 2020 US presidential race.
“I think you might want to listen… there’s nothing wrong with listening,” Trump said when asked by ABC News what he would do if a country such as Russia or China offered him such information.
He denied the suggestion that that would amount to foreign meddling in a US election.
“It’s not an interference, they have information – I think I’d take it,” Trump said.
“If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI – if I thought there was something wrong,” Trump said.
Trump team contacts with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign led to an initial FBI investigation of such dealings, which spawned special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion and obstruction of justice as well as several similar, ongoing efforts in Congress. The Russia issue has consumed the Trump presidency for the past two years, and his new remarks seemed to suggest he still sees nothing wrong with a candidate accepting help from a foreign power.
Mueller’s report on his investigation stated that while there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump with criminal conspiracy, he was happy enough to benefit from Russian dirty tricks. Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren seized on Trump’s remarks to ABC to repeat her strident calls for Trump to be impeached.
“The #MuellerReport made it clear: A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation,” Warren tweeted.
“Now, he said he’d do it all over again. It’s time to impeach Donald Trump.”
Donald Jr, Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his then-campaign head Paul Manafort met the Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York in June 2016 – crucially, two weeks after Mr Trump had secured the Republican nomination. Ms Veselnitskaya had emailed Donald Jr ahead of the meeting claiming she had “dirt” on Mr Trump’s presidential rival Hillary Clinton – to which Donald Jr replied: “If it’s what you say, I love it.”
It’s likely senators would have questioned Donald Jr about this meeting at Trump Tower.
Donald Jr already testified in 2017, but some Democrats suspect that he lied about what he and his father knew about the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
The Trump team initially provided contradictory accounts of the meeting, and about why it was held.
As he emerged from the session, Donald Jr told reporters: “I don’t think I changed anything of what I said, because there was nothing to change.”
Joe Biden, currently the frontrunner in the race to become the Democratic nominee in the next US election, accused Mr Trump of “welcoming” foreign interference with his latest comments.
Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic presidential hopeful, repeated calls for Mr Trump to be impeached.
“The #MuellerReport made it clear: A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Now, he said he’d do it all over again. It’s time to impeach Donald Trump.”
While Kamala Harris, also running for the Democratic nomination, said: “China is listening. Russia is listening. North Korea is listening. Let’s speak the truth: this president is a national security threat.”
