Trump denies links with Russia as he attacks the media
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DONALD Trump attacked US intelligence agencies and the media at his press conference on Wednesday as he denied explosive allegations about his ties to Russia, but admitted for the first time that Moscow had likely meddled in the US election.
Just over a week before he takes office, Trump said he had ceded “complete” managing control of his global property empire to his two adult sons but stopped short of making a full divestment, earning a swift rebuke from an ethics watchdog and Democratic Party opponents.
“It doesn’t meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the last four decades has met,” said Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics.
“He needs to get rid of his business interests and he needs to put them in what’s called a blind trust,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren told Bloomberg TV.
But Trump’s press conference focused 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 president-elect accused CNN of “fake news” and slammed BuzzFeed as “a failing pile of garbage” after it published a dossier said to have been drawn up by a former British intelligence agent hired to do “opposition research” on Trump.
“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” Trump said, referring to allegations of lurid behavior in a Moscow hotel room. The 70-year-old Republican billionaire suggested it may have been released by the intelligence agencies, which would be a “tremendous blot on their record.”
Trump dodged questions about whether his campaign had contacts with Russian intelligence, instead tearing into reporters whose outlets reported on allegations of the existence of compromising material.
“I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” he told CNN’s Jim Acosta, igniting a fresh raft of questions about his respect for constitutional guarantees about the free press.
The US intelligence community concluded that Moscow interfered in the November election in a bid to tip the race in Trump’s favor.
But intelligence chiefs last week presented Trump, as well as President Barack Obama, with a two-page synopsis on the potentially embarrassing but unsubstantiated allegations involving Russia, according to CNN and The New York Times.
US intelligence chief James Clapper expressed his “profound dismay” to Trump over the leaks.
“I expressed my profound dismay at the leaks that have been appearing in the press, and we both agreed that they are extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security,” Clapper said, adding that he did not believe the US intelligence community was the source.
The Kremlin has dismissed the dossier as a “total fake” aimed at damaging ties.
Trump began his press conference muted and disciplined, but became increasingly agitated as questions piled up.
“I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals in Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia,” Trump said.
The president-elect admitted for the first time he believes Moscow likely meddled in the US election.
But while secretary of state-designate Rex Tillerson called Russia a “danger” during his confirmation hearing, Trump downplayed Moscow’s role. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I also think we’ve been hacked by other countries, other people,” he said.
Trump again refused to back away from his openness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability,” he said. “I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.”
Without corroborating its contents, BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier of memos on which the synopsis reportedly presented to Trump is based.
The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes filmed during a 2013 visit by Trump to a Moscow hotel, supposedly as a potential means for blackmail.
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