Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Thursday that senior Obama administration officials assured Congress in September 2016 that Russian meddling would not stop the U.S. from holding a legitimate election, but changed their tune after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

After that happened, Democrats started arguing that Russian meddling was a huge threat to the legitimacy of the 2016 vote.

"I was actually in the briefing in September of 2016, we were briefed by Lisa Monaco, Director Comey, and Secretary Johnson," Johnson told CNN. He was referring to former homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.



GOP Sen. Ron Johnson: "The vast majority of people working in (the FBI, DOJ, CIA) are patriots. They're trying to keep our nation safe ... I truly believe that's what the President believes as well. But again, there are some serious questions" pic.twitter.com/hqs9y6LCQU — New Day (@NewDay) May 24, 2018

"They were telling us that they had evidence of Russian interference, they tried to hack into voter files," Sen. Johnson said.

"They entire tone, what they were requesting in that meeting is, they had it under control, they were dealing with the states, and they wanted us to go out and communicate that this was going to be a legitimate election because they had it under control," he added. "That was exactly what they were trying to do a couple of months before the election."

"But then, basically from their perspective, the wrong person got elected, and all of the sudden, this is the greatest threat to our democracy that has ever occurred," Johnson said. "There's a fair amount of hypocrisy that has occurred during this timeline."

Johnson spoke just hours before top Trump administration officials were set to brief lawmakers on what they know about how the origin of the investigation into Trump's alleged links to Russia. Trump and his allies say the investigation is being pushed by Democrats to delegitimize Trump's presidency, and some charge the Obama administration was using an informant close to the Trump campaign.