Thursday, June 13, 2019
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that if a foreign power offered dirt on his 2020 opponent, he’d be open to accepting it and that he’d have no obligation to call in the FBI.
“I think I’d want to hear it,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News, adding, “There’s nothing wrong with listening.”
Trump’s comments came just a month after he pledged not to use information stolen by foreign adversaries in his 2020 re-election campaign, even as he wrongly insisted he hadn’t used such information to his benefit in 2016.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office in May, Trump said he “would certainly agree to” that commitment.
“I don’t need it,” he said as he met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“All I need is the opponents that I’m looking at.”
Asked whether his advisers should accept information on an opponent from Russia, China or another nation or call the FBI this time, Trump said, “I think maybe you do both,” expressing openness to reviewing the information.
“I think you might want to listen,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called, from a country – Norway – we have information on your opponent. Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”