In an interview Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he was unaware that Russian interference was promoting his 2016 presidential campaign.
During a live interview on Vermont Edition, host Jane Lindholm raised the effort by foreign bodies, specifically Russia to convince American citizens "to believe something other than what they might otherwise believe."
Sanders: Absolutely
Lindholm: We've seen it in the Mueller indictments, we've seen the Russian government according to these indictments working to undermine Hillary Clinton鈥�
Sanders: Absolutely
Lindholm: in many ways,
Sanders: Well, ha 'Supporting my campaign?' No," Sanders replied, "they were attacking Hillary Clinton's campaign using my supporters against them."
He then questioned how it was possible for President Donald Trump to ignore reporting from his own intelligence agencies:
. on Russian meddling and ties to Trump: "I don't know."
— 开云体育 Radio (@vprnet)
"Something very weird" is happening.
Listen live 鉃★笍
Sanders alluded to being aware something was going on even during the primary campaign, but wasn't clear about exactly when his campaign began to suspect what turned out to be alleged interference by Russians in the 2016 campaign.
"In April and May," Sanders said Wednesday, "it appeared that there were lots of strange things happening attacking Hillary Clinton."
During the interview, Lindholm asked Sanders why he did not go to his supporters and warn them about the suspicious activity.
In response, Sanders said a campaign staffer named John Mattes noticed in late September 2016, hundreds of people popping up on pro-Sanders Facebook pages to disparage then-Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Around the same time, Sanders was out on the campaign trail campaigning for Clinton.
According to Sanders, Mattes went to the Clinton campaign and said 鈥淚 think these guys are Russians.鈥�
But Sanders stressed that he 鈥渄id not know Russian bots were promoting my campaign."
"I did not know Russian bots were promoting my campaign."
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"The real question to be asked is" why the Clinton campaign didn't do something.
鈥�
Listen live
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The Russians were trying to promote division among the American people, Sanders said.
On Russian meddling: told of when asked why didn't he warn his supporters- He didn鈥檛 know early on that Russian bots were promoting his campaign.
— Tabitha Dudley (@TabithaDudley90)
鈥淭he real question is what was the Clinton campaign," Sanders went on to say. "They had more information about this than we did.鈥�
"We knew what we knew, when we knew it,鈥� he concluded.
(this exchange starts at 11:31 in the full audio)
Update 6:19 p.m.: Sanders' campaign released the following statement Wednesday night.
