Donald Trump calling Russia’s election meddling a 'hoax' is named 'biggest lie of the year'
President Donald Trump's claim that Russian meddling in the 2016 election is a “hoax” has been named the biggest lie of the year by fact-checker PolitiFact.
Despite bipartisan evidence to the contrary, Mr Trump has continued to suggest that investigations into the Kremlin’s interference in last year’s presidential race are fake news.
By making the claim, Mr Trump has contradicted top US intelligence officials, who have concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Mr Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won,” the President said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt in May.
Federal and congressional investigators are also looking into alleged ties between Russia and Trump campaign advisers.
On Twitter in September, Mr Trump wrote: “The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?”
Earlier this year, Facebook disclosed that it found more than $150,000 in Russian-linked advertisement spending on more than 5,200 adverts on its platform.
During an overseas trip to Asia in November, Mr Trump said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the Kremlin did not attempt to interfere in the 2016 election.
“Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn't do that.’ And I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Mr Trump said.
“When the nation’s commander-in-chief refuses to acknowledge a threat to US democracy, it makes it all the more difficult to address the problem, PolitiFact editor Angie Holan wrote in a post. “For this reason, we name Trump’s claim that the Russia interference is a hoax as our Lie of the Year for 2017.”
She said PolitiFact readers also “chose the claim as the year's most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin.”
Ms Holan noted that it seems unlikely - but not impossible - that Russian meddling changed the result of the election.
