President Donald Trump said Thursday the investigations into his campaign were "set up by the Democrats," though Republicans are a majority in both houses of Congress and the U.S. intelligence community has already concluded that Russia interfered in the election.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, the president said he has "nothing to do with it."
"There's no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians. The other thing is the Russians did not affect the vote, and everybody seems to think that," Trump said.
In January, the U.S. intelligence community — including the FBI, the CIA and the NSA — published a declassified report which alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to undermine faith in the American electoral process.
When Holt mentioned this, Trump responded, "I'll tell you this, if Russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections, I think it's a horrible thing and I want to get to the bottom of it and I want to make sure it will never, ever happen again."
The FBI and bipartisan congressional committees have opened investigations into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The president said he wants to "get to the bottom" of Moscow's interference, but seemed to discount the intelligence community's existing conclusion that Russia in fact attempted to sway the election.
"If Russia hacked, if Russia did anything having to do with our election I want to know about it," Trump said.