Russia’s top diplomat said Saturday that he raised concerns with his American counterpart about Moscow being accused once more of meddling in President Trump’s election campaign.
“I bluntly said that we anticipate and are already feeling a new wave of accusations that we will interfere in the current election,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recalled during a television interview about a conversation he had recently with U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo.
Mr. Lavrov added that he proposed to Mr. Pompeo that both countries “create a mechanism” for their president to address related concerns raised by either, according to a transcription of the interview published in Russian on the ministry’s website.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately return a request for comment over the weekend. The agency previously said that Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Lavrov spoke by phone last week.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long assessed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election won by President Trump, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said this week that a review conducted by lawmakers found no reason to doubt the intelligence community’s conclusion.
“With the 2020 presidential election approaching, it’s more important than ever that we remain vigilant against the threat of interference from hostile foreign actors,” Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican, said Tuesday.
“There is certainly no reason to doubt that the Russians’ success in 2016 is leading them to try again in 2020, and we must not be caught unprepared,” echoed Vice Chairman Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat.
Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 election.
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