My campaign’s collusion with Russia was hoax: Trump

US President Donald Trump has said that his election campaign’s collusion with the Russian government during the US 2016 presidential election was a “hoax”.

"I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said 'it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,' " Trump tweeted on Sunday.

"The Russian 'hoax' was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia - it never did!"

Trump also praised Democratic Representative Adam Schiff for putting the blame for the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election on former President Barack Obama.

"Finally, Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing. Thank you Adam!" the president tweeted. 

"Now that Adam Schiff is starting to blame President Obama for Russian meddling in the election, he is probably doing so as yet another excuse that the Democrats, lead by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election," Trump said in another tweet. 

The comment came after Schiff said Obama's lack of proper action to the 2014 hack of Sony encouraged the Russians to meddle in the 2016 election.

"I think that others around the world watched that and determined that cyber is a cost-free intervention," Schiff told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell at an event Saturday.

His comments came a day after thirteen Russians and three Russian companies were charged with conspiracy to interfere with the US election.

On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the alleged Russian meddling, indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of interfering in elections in the United States.   

The indictment alleges the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate Trump and hurt his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Trump has repeatedly denied allegations that his campaign colluded with Russians and has condemned the investigations. Russia has also denied the allegations. Trump has also labeled Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt,” and has suggested that Russians might have meddled in favor of Clinton.

'No indications' Russia meddled in US elections

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no indication of Russian government involvement in meddling in the US elections.

"There are no indications that the Russian government could be involved in this," Peskov told journalists, adding that Russia "has not seen significant evidence" of interference in the 2016 elections.

Russia "has not seen significant evidence" of interference in US affairs, Peskov said. "As before, we insist that we consider such evidence groundless, we don't consider it exhaustive or fair at all and we cannot agree with it."

Moscow "does not have a custom of interfering in other countries' internal affairs and is not doing this now," he underlined.

In a tweet following the release of the indictments on Friday, Trump said the indictment showed his campaign “did nothing wrong” and that there was “no collusion” with Russia.

But Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said “with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now incontrovertible” that Russia meddled in the election.

In response, Trump said McMaster forgot something important when he talked about Russia's alleged election meddling.

"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H [Hillary Clinton], the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!" Trump tweeted.

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