--- title: Donald Trump Changes His Story on the Russia Investigation description: President Donald Trump has called special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt" that's found no evidence of wrongdoing by his presidential campaign. But facts... canonical: https://time.com/5472949/donald-trump-russia-denials/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-06T21:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:13:17.928Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump Changes His Story on the Russia Investigation og:description: 1. Deny 2. Downplay 3. Deflect og:url: https://time.com/5472949/donald-trump-russia-denials/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta763f2e65767070a/69894078656a3f7c8abd61ee/gettyimages-1074416132.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4488 og:image:height: 2525 og:image:alt: President And Mrs. Trump Depart The White House For G20 Summit In Argentina og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump Changes His Story on the Russia Investigation twitter:description: 1. Deny 2. Downplay 3. Deflect twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta763f2e65767070a/69894078656a3f7c8abd61ee/gettyimages-1074416132.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Trump Changes His Story on the Russia Investigation > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Dec 6, 2018 9:00 PM UTC  President Donald Trump answers questions from the press while departing the White House November 29, 2018 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump answers questions from the press while departing the White House November 29, 2018 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee—Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Dec 6, 2018 9:00 PM UTC President Donald Trump has called special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt” that’s found no evidence of wrongdoing by his presidential campaign. But facts uncovered by the probe, intelligence community reports and news stories have forced Trump at times to acknowledge that some of his blanket denials in the past were wrong. When doing so, however, Trump has followed a pattern. After the blanket denial, Trump admits to a minimal version of the facts, then, later, makes a full admission but argues that there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Read below or watch the video above to see how it works. ## 1\. Trump issues a blanket denial When discussing hacked Democratic emails, Trump first denied Russia was responsible. “I notice any time anything wrong happens they like to say, the Russians, the Russians — she doesn’t know it’s the Russians doing the hacking, maybe there is no hacking,” he said at the [second presidential debate](https://transcripts.factcheck.org/presidential-debate-washington-university/). The Trump campaign also maintained that it had no foreign contacts during the election. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign,” [spokesperson Hope Hicks said](https://apnews.com/323f28f7f5e242498f43e4a7188336bc) in a Nov. 11, 2016 statement. “All the contact by the Trump campaign and associates was with the American people,” [Vice President-elect Mike Pence said](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/15/mike-pence-denies-contacts-with-russia-during-campaign/?utm%5Fterm=.9052aa209b39) in January of 2017. And Trump claimed that he had no loans, business deals, real estate investments or contacts with Russia. “I mean I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia,” he [told CBS Miami](https://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/07/27/cbs4-news-exclusive-trump-denies-ties-to-russia/) in July of 2016\. “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” he tweeted the following January. ## 2\. Trump downplays the facts Even when accepting the intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered in the election, Trump argued that it might not be alone. “I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows,” he said in a [July 2017 interview](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/19/heres-everything-trump-has-said-about-russian-interference-in-2016/). Trump also downplayed Russian contacts when they became public: Carter Page was a [“low-level”](https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/donald-trump-news-conference-transcript/index.html) advisor [“who nobody even knew,”](https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/407335-exclusive-trump-says-exposing-corrupt-fbi-probe-could-be-crowning-achievement) campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was a [“young, low level volunteer,”](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/925335577217683456?lang=en) and a meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was [“short”](https://www.businessinsider.sg/watch-trump-defends-his-son-meeting-with-russian-lawyer-paris-emmanuel-macron-2017-7/) and [“went nowhere.”](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026084333315153924) And after Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted to working on a Moscow real estate deal through June of 2016, Trump waved it away. “Everybody knew about it,” he [told a group of reporters](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-27/). “This deal was a very public deal. Everybody knows about this deal. I wasn’t trying to hide anything.” ## 3\. Trump argues it didn’t matter Finally, Trump minimized Russia’s interference by arguing that it did not affect the election results. “Now, everybody agrees that there was no impact on the votes in this election, which is very important to say,” he [said in July of 2017](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-interview-highlights/highlights-of-reuters-interview-with-trump-idUSKBN19X34X). “Well, the Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever,” he said in March of 2018. He ultimately excused the Trump Tower meeting by arguing anyone would have taken it. “I think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. It’s called opposition research or even research into your opponent,” he [said in July of 2017](https://www.businessinsider.sg/watch-trump-defends-his-son-meeting-with-russian-lawyer-paris-emmanuel-macron-2017-7/). “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics,” he [tweeted in August of 2018](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026084333315153924). And he argued that there would be nothing wrong with exploring a business deal with a foreign power while running for president. “There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it,” he [told reporters](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-27/). “Even if he was right, it doesn’t matter because I was allowed to do whatever I wanted during the campaign.” The problem with Trump’s approach is that it undermines his other denials, while raising the question of why he made these denials. After all, if there was nothing wrong with meeting with foreign officials promising dirt or pursuing business deals while running for president, why deny it in the first place? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5472949/donald-trump-russia-denials/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5472949/donald-trump-russia-denials/"},"headline":"How Trump Changes His Story on the Russia Investigation","datePublished":"2018-12-06T21:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:13:17.928Z","description":"President Donald Trump has called special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation a \"witch hunt\" that's found no evidence of wrongdoing by his presidential campaign. 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