Prez-elect assails sex romp claims, says it’s ‘fake news’
President-elect Donald Trump is flatly denying the salacious details of a damaging 35-page dossier and blasted the media yesterday for pushing the “fake news” that the Russians might have compromising personal and financial dirt that could be used to blackmail him.
“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours,” a combative Trump said yesterday at his first formal news conference since last summer — a rollicking affair that saw him arguing with the press and refusing to take questions from a CNN reporter.
“It was a group of opponents that got together — sick people — and they put that crap together,” Trump said.
He assailed BuzzFeed News as “a failing pile of garbage” and CNN as “fake news” for publishing details, while hailing The New York Times and others for playing down the unsubstantiated claims. CNN first broke the story on Tuesday; BuzzFeed went a step further by publishing the actual memo — a document produced by a former British spy that U.S. intelligence agencies and media have said they have been unable to corroborate.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday identified the dossier’s author as Christopher Steele, 52, of London-based Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., a private investigation firm. The paper said Steele, a former British intelligence operative, declined comment through an intermediary, who said the subject was “too hot.”
News organizations began reporting on the dossier after U.S. officials leaked that a two-page summary was presented to Trump, President Obama and congressional leaders last week.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Trump political adversary, also released a statement saying he received “sensitive information” late last year and “delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.” If true, that may raise questions among Democrats about why FBI Director James B. Comey chose to publicly reopen the probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the election, but never mentioned questions surrounding Trump and his campaign.
Meanwhile, Trump called the leak “a tremendous blot” on the records of U.S. intelligence agencies.
“A thing like that should have never been written, never should have been had and never should have been released,” said Trump.
Trump also acknowledged yesterday he believes Russia was behind the hacking of embarrassing Democratic emails.
“I think it was Russia,” said Trump, though he dodged a question about whether officials linked to his campaign colluded with the Russians, as the dossier alleges.
The president-elect, who takes the oath Jan. 20, also detailed efforts to remove potential conflicts of interest with his business, the Trump Organization, handing management to his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and associate Allen Weisselberg, and hiring an ethics adviser.
“I hope at the end of eight years, I’ll come back and say, ‘Oh, you did a good job,’ ” Trump said of his three new managers. Using his trademark reality TV line, he added, “Otherwise, if they do a bad job, I’ll say, ‘You’re fired.’ ”