“They had more information about this than we did.”
In a new interview on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised questions about why the Clinton campaign kept information from the public that pointed to Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The former Democratic presidential candidate was asked by Vermont Public Radio on Wednesday to explain why he didn’t tell his supporters directly that Russian actors were trying to influence the 2016 election after being alerted to what Sanders called “strange things happening attacking Hillary Clinton” in April and May.
“If [Sanders] was aware that Russians were trying to promote him and divide Democrats against Mrs. Clinton, why did he not communicate this to his supporters?” a listener asked the Vermont senator.
Sanders responded by first stating that the Russian posts were not directly “supporting me any more than they were supporting groups like Black Lives Matter.”
“I did not know that Russian bots were promoting my campaign,” Sanders said. “Russians bots were not promoting my campaign. What we found out is that in April and May, it appeared that there were lots of strange things happening attacking Hillary Clinton.”
But when pressed on why he didn’t inform his supporters specifically leading up to Election Day, Sanders pivoted to questioning why the Clinton campaign, whom he stumped for after losing in the Democratic primary, didn’t reveal information it had on Russian actors.
“In the midst of all of this, I was out campaigning very hard for Hillary Clinton. So let me leave it at that,” Sanders said.
“I would say that the real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign — they had more information about this than we did, and at this point, we were working with them,” he responded.
After being pushed again by the interviewer on why his campaign didn’t detail evidence of Russian meddling, Sanders said his team didn’t know about it at the time.
“We knew what we knew when we knew it. And that’s about all that I can say,” Sanders said.
The rumored 2020 candidate’s comments follow the Justice Department charging 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for meddling in the 2016 presidential election last week.
