Trump says he has authorised declassification of documents related to Russian 'hoax'

US President Donald Trump said that he has declassified all documents related to the federal investigations into Russian interference in US elections and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email account for government emails. Trump fired off a barrage of tweets after returning to the White House as he further slides down in opinion polls. 

Calling Russian interference as “hoax”, the US President said that the documents were declassified by him long ago but authorities acted “very slowly”. 

Mueller Report never established that there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential elections, however, the reports of Russian interference in US elections were not denied. US intelligence believes that Russia is using a range of measures to “primarily denigrate” former Vice-President Joe Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia “establishment.”

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Intelligence inputs

Last month, the director of US counterintelligence had said that foreign states will continue to use “covert and overt influence measures” in their attempts to sway the voters’ preferences and perspectives, singling out Russia, China and Iran. NCSC Director William Evanina stressed that Russia’s opposition to Biden is consistent with its public criticism of him when he was Vice President in the Obama Administration.

“Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television,” Evanina said in a statement. 

Trump has regularly downplayed the threat of Russian interference even after contradictory intelligence inputs. He had also vigorously attacked Hillary ahead of the 2016 presidential elections for the possible violation of federal records rules which prohibits the use of the private server for government emails. Calling Clinton’s actions “illegal”, Trump had said that the “scandal” was “bigger than Watergate” and frequently encouraged his supporters to chant “lock her up” during campaigns. 

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