Trump rejects ‘phony’ Russia dossier
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday berated the media and US intelligence agencies as he denied explosive allegations about his ties with Russia — while admitting for the first time that Moscow had likely meddled in the US election.
Just over a week before he takes office, Trump confirmed he had ceded “complete” managing control of his global property empire to his two sons, seeking to dispel fears about possible conflict of interests.
But the focus of the hourlong media conference — his first in six months — was firmly on the unsubstantiated claims that his aides colluded with the Kremlin to win the US election and that Russia has compromising information on Trump.
The 70-year-old billionaire angrily accused CNN of being “fake news” and called BuzzFeed — which published a dossier with the allegedly incriminating material drawn up by a former British intelligence agent hired to do “opposition research” on Trump — a “failing pile of garbage”.
IT WAS A GROUP OF OPPONENTS THAT GOT TOGETHER, SICK PEOPLE, AND THEY PUT THAT CRAP TOGETHER
“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” the president-elect said, referring to allegations of lurid behaviour in a Moscow hotel room.
“It was a group of opponents that got together, sick people, and they put that crap together,” Trump said.
“I think it’s a disgrace that information would be let out,” Trump said.
It “was released by maybe the intelligence agencies, who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies, which would be a tremendous blot on their record,” Trump said, later saying it was “disgraceful.”
On Twitter earlier, he decried a political “witch-hunt” against him and asked: “Are we living in Nazi Germany?“
Trump dodged specific questions about whether his campaign had contacts with Russian intelligence, instead tearing into reporters whose outlets reported the suggestions of compromising material.
“I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” he said to a CNN reporter, igniting a fresh raft of questions about his respect for constitutional guarantees about a free media.
Trump warned BuzzFeed that the medica firm would “suffer the consequences.”
The US intelligence community has already concluded Moscow interfered in the November election in a bid to tip the race in Trump’s favour.
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