Trump says he’d ‘want to hear’ foreign dirt on 2020 rivals
Trump says if a foreign power were offering dirt on his 2020 opponent, he'd be open to accepting it
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says if a foreign power were offering dirt on his 2020 opponent, he’d be open to accepting it and would have no obligation to call in the FBI.
“I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “If somebody called from a country, Norway, ‘we have information on your opponent,’ oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”
When Stephanopoulos asked the president whether he'd want that kind of "interference" in American politics, Trump pushed back at the word.
“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's eldest son's role in organizing a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer offering negative information on Hillary Clinton was a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that Donald Trump Jr. should have called his agency to report the offer. Mueller said he did not find enough criminal evidence to bring conspiracy charges.
But Trump, who nominated Wray as director in 2017, said that he disagreed and that “the FBI director is wrong.”
This article contains information from the Washington Post.