The White House is accusing President-elect Donald Trump of knowing the Russians were interfering in the US election — and standing idly by because it was hurting Hillary Clinton.

“There was ample evidence that was known long before the election, and in most cases long before October, about the Trump campaign in Russia, everything from the Republican nominee himself calling on Russia to hack his opponent,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at Wednesday’s press briefing.

“It might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent’s campaign,” he added.

Earnest even went so far as to say that Trump chose campaign manager Paul Manafort — the second of three to lead his successful presidential bid — because of his closeness to the Russians.

“The Republican nominee chose a campaign chair that had extensive, lucrative, personal, financial ties to the Kremlin and it was obvious to those who were covering the race that the hack and leak strategy that had been operationalized was not being equally applied to the two parties and to the two campaigns. There is one side that was bearing the brunt of that strategy and another side that was clearly benefiting from it,” Earnest said.

The accusations come as President Obama and Democrats accuse the Russians of dispersing hacked documents from Clinton campaign officials and the Democratic national Committee to influence the outcome of the election.

“Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union. What they did here, hacking some emails and releasing them, is not a particularly fancy brand of espionage or propaganda,” Obama told Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” Monday night.

The Trump campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment.