Trump again presses debunked theory that hacked DNC server is in Ukraine

Again endorsing the efforts by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to seek out corruption in Ukraine involving the 2016 elections, President Donald Trump on Wednesday again pressed a conspiracy theory that a DNC computer server hacked by Russia somehow is now in the hands of a company in Ukraine.

"The server - they say - is held by a company whose primary ownership individual is from Ukraine," the President told reporters in the Oval Office.

Mr. Trump has been pushing the idea that a company brought in by the Democratic National Committee to examine evidence of hacks by Russian intelligence - Crowdstrike - had ties to Ukraine, darkly hinting that Ukraine, and not Russia, may have been behind the DNC hacks in 2016.

"I think it's very important to see the server," the President said again on Wednesday, even though there is no evidence to support the idea that the DNC server is in Ukraine.

During a July phone call with the leader of Ukraine, President Trump made a specific request that Ukraine help track down the DNC server.

"I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike," the President said according to notes released by the White House.

"I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it," the transcript states.

"I would like you to get to the bottom of it," the President is quoted as telling the Ukraine President in that July 25 call.

A former top national security aide to President Trump, Thomas Bossert, has sharply criticized the President and top aides in recent weeks for pushing the idea that the DNC server is in Ukraine.

"It's not only a conspiracy theory, it is completely debunked," Bossert told ABC News in late September.

In an interview, Bossert blamed Giuliani and other aides for continuing to talk to the President about the unproven Ukraine involvement in the 2016 hacking, which U.S. Intelligence and the Mueller probe has pinned on Russia.

"I am deeply frustrated with what (Giuliani) and the legal team are doing, in repeating that debunked theory to the President," Bossert said.

"Let me repeat again, that theory has no validity," Bossert added.

Cox Media Group