Intelligence did not brief me about Russian backing for Bernie Sanders, says Donald Trump

Donald Trump says he had never been briefed about Russian efforts to help Bernie Sanders win the Democrat nomination.

Donald and Melania Trump at the White House on Monday. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump has claimed he has never been briefed about Russian efforts to help Bernie Sanders win the Democratic presidential nomination.

The President accused the Democratic chairman of the House of Representative intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, of leaking a classified briefing.

Senator Sanders acknowledged last week that he was briefed last month by US officials about Russian efforts to boost his chances to be the nominee against Mr Trump in November.

“I read where Russia is helping Bernie Sanders,” Mr Trump said. “Nobody said it to me. Nobody said it to me at all. Nobody briefed me about that at all. They leaked it.”

He accused Mr Schiff, who played a lead role in Mr Trump’s impeachment, of leaking information from a classified briefing.

“Schiff and his group, they leaked it to the papers as usual,” he said. “They ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information. He should not be leaking information out of intelligence. They ought to investigate Adam Schiff.”

Mr Schiff said Mr Trump’s ­accusation was false.

“Nice deflection, Mr President. But your false claims fool no one,” he tweeted.

“You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020.”

Mr Schiff also claimed Mr Trump “fired” Joseph Maguire as acting national intelligence director for “briefing congress” about election interference from Russia.

“You’ve betrayed America. Again,” he tweeted.

A two-year investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was a sophisticated, Kremlin-led operation to sow division in the US and up-end the 2016 election by using cyber attacks and social media as weapons. Intelligence officials have warned that Russia is doing the same thing this year. Conflicting accounts emerged from the closed-door briefing that election security officials gave to a house committee. One intelligence official said representatives were not told that Russia was working to ­directly aid Mr Trump. But other people familiar with the meeting said they were told the Kremlin was looking to help Mr Trump’s candidacy. It’s unclear whether the committee members were also briefed about Russian efforts to boost Senator Sanders — a move that could be seen as beneficial to Mr Trump’s re-election bid.

“I think what it could be is, you know, the Democrats are treating Bernie Sanders very unfairly and it sounds to me like a leak from Adam Schiff because they don’t want Bernie Sanders to represent them,” Mr Trump said.

US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said he had seen no intelligence to show that ­Russia was interfering in the US presidential campaign in the hope of re-electing Mr Trump.

Mr O’Brien also denied reports that Mr Trump became angry when he was told about the briefing and that he confronted Mr Maguire and subsequently replaced him with the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell.

Mr O’Brien said Mr Trump was not angry with Mr Maguire and would have liked Mr Maguire to stay in government in a different role. He said Mr Maguire’s time as acting director of national intelligence was up in early March and the White House needed an individual — someone who had already been confirmed by the Senate — to replace him.

AP