Putin’s denial of any role in US poll

VLADIMIR Putin has said he has no compromising material about Donald Trump as he strongly denied any Russian meddling in last year’s US election.

“Well, this is just another load of nonsense,” Mr Putin said on NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, when asked whether he had any damaging information on the US President.

The remarks were the latest in a series of denials from Moscow that have had little impact so far on a political crisis in the US over potential links between Russia and Mr Trump’s inner circle.

Later this week former FBI director James Comey is due to testify on whether Mr Trump tried to get him to back off an investigation into alleged ties between Mr Trump’s election campaign and Moscow.

Mr Comey was leading the FBI’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential election when Mr Trump fired him last month, four years into his 10- year term.

Mr Putin also said that regardless of Mr Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman, he had had no relationship with him and had never met him. And the Russian leader noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in his country.

“Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Mr Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”

Mr Trump has offered contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr Putin over time but has also said the two never met.

However, the two have spoken several times by phone since Mr Trump’s election.

Mr Trump has called an FBI investigation into alleged ties between his campaign and Russia a “witch hunt” designed to undermine the legitimacy of his 2016 election win.

Mr Trump has also disparaged a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations that purported to show Russian intelligence operatives had compromising information about him, but which he has described as a “hoax”.

US intelligence agencies concluded in January that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Mr Trump’s favour, including by hacking into the emails of senior Democrats, a charge the Kremlin denies.

“They have been Mr Putin said.

“And they aren’t analysing the information in its entirety.

“I haven’t seen, even once, any direct proof of Russian interference in the ( US) presidential election.” misled,”