Trump accepts intel on Russia poll meddling

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump moved Tuesday to limit the damage from his summit with Vladimir Putin, claiming he misspoke in appearing to accept the Russian leader´s denial of election meddling -- in a rebuke to US intelligence chiefs.

At their Helsinki meeting a day earlier, Trump failed to challenge Putin over the 2016 presidential election, seeming to accept at face value the strongman´s denial that Moscow interfered in a bid to undermine the Democrat Hillary Clinton.

But faced with outrage at home, and even allies demanding he reverse course, Trump — in an extraordinary postscript to the summit — sought to walk back his remarks.

At his joint press conference with Putin, Trump had acknowledged that his intelligence chiefs believe Russia hacked and leaked emails damaging to his rival Clinton.

But, insisting he won the race fair and square, the Republican said: "I have President Putin, he just said it is not Russia. I will say this: I don´t see any reason why it would be."

One day on, however, Trump said he had "realized that there is a need for some clarification," before launching into a fumbling explanation.

"In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word ´would´ instead of ´wouldn´t´," Trump said, speaking at the White House ahead of a meeting with Republican lawmakers.

"The sentence should have been, ´I don´t see any reason why it wouldn´t be Russia.´ Sort of a double negative," he added -- offering a laborious clarification that he repeated several times over.

The US leader also reiterated what he said was his "full faith and support for America´s great intelligence agencies." "I have felt very strongly that while Russia´s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that -- and I´ve said this many times -- I accept our intelligence community´s conclusion that Russia´s meddling in the 2016 election took place," Trump said.