Scott Morrison says Trump asked for help in Russia probe

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The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Donald Trump requested his government’s help in an investigation looking at the origins of the U.S probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. On Wednesday, Morrison mentioned during an interview with Sky News about a phone call he had with the U.S President Trump in which he agreed to cooperate with the Trump administration’s new investigation as fairly uneventful. Morrison said, “The U.S President contacted me and asked for there to be a point of contact between the Australian government and the U.S attorney, which I was happy to do on the basis that it was something we had already committed to doing”.

Morrison also confirmed that Australia had formerly offered its cooperation in the probe that is being led by the U.S attorney general William Barr. It is important that Trump nominated William Barr as the U.S attorney general to oversee the Justice Department in December 2018. Morrison said the Australian ambassador to the U.S, Joe Hockey wrote a letter to Barr offering his assistance in May. The Australian PM said, “We had said we were prepared to assist and cooperate in that investigation, which is not unusual, I mean the US is our most significant ally and we are used to sharing a lot of information. Now, Australia would never do anything contrary to our national interest but it would have been, I think, frankly more surprising had we chosen not to cooperate”.

Morrison added, “I think it would have been quite extraordinary for us to deny such cooperation on what possible basis could we do that? Australia has nothing to hide. We are not the subject of this investigation, nor are we a party to it”. The comments of Australian PM came shortly after reports alleging Australia would not provide the US with diplomatic cables relating to a meeting between Trump’s former adviser George Papadopoulos and Alexander Downer, Australia’s former minister of foreign affairs. Morrison said, “All that simply happened here was the US Attorney is undertaking an official investigation and Australia had already stated in May that Australia would cooperate with such an investigation”.