Beat the press, Trump-style
RIPS APART ‘FAKE NEWS’ SPY STORY KEEPS BIZ EMPIRE ALL IN THE FAMILY
DONALD TRUMP went on a BuzzFeeding frenzy Wednesday against the website that published an unverified dossier of alleged compromising information the Russian government compiled against the President-elect.
Speaking at his first press conference since his election on Nov. 8, Trump took direct aim at BuzzFeed, calling the site a “failing pile of garbage” for posting the alleged “kompromat.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared to counter earlier claims by Trump’s team with a rare statement late Wednesday saying it’s the duty of the U.S. intelligence community to let him know about such documents, whether substantiated or not.
“Part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security,” Clapper wrote.
The source behind the dossier was identified by The Wall Street Journal Wednesday as Christopher Steele, 52, a former British spy turned private intelligence businessman.
Steele is director of Orbis Business Intelligence in the U.K. He was not identified in a CNN report about U.S. agencies giving a summary of his 35-page document to Trump last Friday — which Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway denied.The dossier contains allegations of Trump engaging in “perverted sexual acts” in a Moscow hotel room that were caught on video.
The Daily News cannot confirm the information published in full by BuzzFeed, which included claims of sex parties in St. Petersburg and coordination between the President-elect’s team and the Russian government.
Trump called the dossier “all fake news” and berated the media for reporting on it.
He also went on a Twitter tirade about the reports Wednesday morning.
“Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?” read one tweet.
The CNN report — which found the feds were probing some Trump surrogates’ ties to the Russian government — has said that the information in the dossier was compiled as opposition research by Trump’s political foes, a fact latched on to by the President-elect.