Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected claims on Monday that his government possesses compromising information on Donald Trump, saying that he didn’t even know Trump was in Russia during the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant.
However, The Washington Post writes that government officials close to Putin knew about Trump’s visit and about his desire to meet the Russian president while in Moscow.
The Steele dossier, a 2016 document compiled by a former British spy and funded by Hilary Clinton’s campaign, alleged that Trump sought to help Russia as the government had a compromising video of him from his hotel room in Moscow. The Russians are known to spy on foreign government officials and business leaders through surveillance at hotels and other locations.
The Russian president made the remarks after his meeting with Trump in Helsinki, maintaining he knew very little about his U.S. counterpart, but offering no clear denial that he had compromising information about Trump or his family.
“We don’t have anything on them,” Putin said. “I don’t want to insult President Trump when I say this — and I may come as rude — but before he announced that he will run for presidency, he was of no interest for us.”
While acknowledging he had heard “these rumors,” Putin seemed to imply they were completely without merit.
“I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then, when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow,” he said. “It’s difficult to imagine another nonsense of a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard this issue and don’t think about this anymore again.”
Shortly after, President Trump gave an interview in which he corroborated the Russian president’s claims, brushing off the idea that Putin’s government had compromising information on him.
“They have no information on Trump,” President Trump said. “And one thing you know, if they had it, it would have been out.”
He further reiterated there was no collusion between Moscow and his campaign in 2016 and again accused the special counsel’s investigation of hampering the improvement of relations between the two countries.
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