MOSCOW (CBS News) — A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin has denied allegations that the Kremlin has collected compromising information about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed news reports as a “complete fabrication and utter nonsense.” Peskov insisted that the Kremlin “does not engage in collecting compromising material.”
“It is an obvious attempt to harm our bilateral relations,” Peskov said, adding “In English, it is called pulp fiction. Surely, we should react to it with the same sense of humor.”
Peskov said there was a “sad side to it,” alleging unidentified “people” were simply “whipping up hysteria, going out of their way to keep up the atmosphere of a witch hunt.”
Multiple U.S. government and intelligence officials told CBS News on Tuesday that an addendum to the classified intelligence report on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the U.S. election contained unverified details of potentially compromising information that Russia has gathered on Mr. Trump.
The officials told CBS News the information originally came from a former British intelligence officer and was eventually turned over to U.S. intelligence, as well as other government officials, last year.
After the news reports emerged Tuesday regarding the Russian information, Mr. Trump appeared to dismiss the claims in a tweet as “fake news.”
