Bernie Sanders fails to address Russian meddling allegations in 2016 US elections

United States Senator Bernie Sanders has apparently struggled to address the recent allegations of Russia's collusion in the 2016 US presidential elections.

This also included a plan to strengthen Democratic Party's campaign in the elections.

According to the allegations, Russia's meddling was meant to "boost" US President Donald Trump's campaign to push for a win and to "harm" his Democratic-rival Hillary Clinton.

This comes after the US Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 elections in the Russian probe, the Fox News reported.

According to the indictment, it read, "The Russian nationals were engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump."

In one episode of the indictment, the Russian nationals were found allegedly circulating an internal outline of themes for future content to be posted to organization-controlled social media accounts in February 2016.

The allegations have come at a time when Sanders is seen to be pushing himself for a possible 2020 White House bid.

Sanders is yet to give a clear response on whether he and his campaign were aware of, or took action to address the interference in the 2016 elections. This includes 'Russian0020social media accounts' which were found allegedly supporting his campaign.

Instead, Sanders has tried to shift the scrutiny toward Clinton's campaign for not doing more to prevent Russian meddling.

In an interview with Vermont Public Radio last week, Sanders said, "The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did. Were they supporting my campaign? No. They were attacking Hillary Clinton's campaign and using my supporters against Hillary Clinton."

He has claimed that a campaign aide shared information with the Clinton campaign about suspected anti-Clinton Russian trolls on a Facebook page.

--ANI