WASHINGTON: The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST):
8:05 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump is criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies over the leak of an unsubstantiated report that Russia had compromising personal and financial information on him.
Trump tweeted Wednesday that “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?”
The tweet was part of an early morning Trump firestorm denouncing the reports, in which he said he has “nothing” to do with Russia. Various news outlets reported late Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump last week on the unverified information Russia was said to have on him.
Trump insisted that the media reports were “very unfair” and payback for defeating other Republican presidential hopefuls and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“I win an election easily, a great “movement” is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!”
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7:50 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump is denouncing unsubstantiated reports that Russia had compromising secret information on him.
He tweeted Wednesday morning: “Russia has never tried to use leverage over me.” In capital letters, he added: “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” He called the unverified report paid for by political opponents “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.”
A few minutes earlier, he repeated Russia’s denial of the reports, which he called, “Very unfair!”
A U.S. official told The Associated Press Tuesday that intelligence officials had informed Trump about an unsubstantiated report that Russia had compromising personal and financial information about him. The briefing about the document was first reported by CNN.
The Associated Press has not been able to substantiate the information in the dossier, which misspelled the name of Russia’s largest bank.
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7 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump will hold his first full news conference Wednesday since winning the 2016 presidential election.
The last time Trump held a news conference, he was plunging into a heated general election campaign with Hillary Clinton and suggested Russia could help dig up some of his rival’s emails.
Nearly six months and a presidential campaign victory later, Trump will finally step before reporters again Wednesday to face questions about what role he believes Russia played in the election year hacking of Democratic groups — interference the intelligence community says was intended to help the Republican defeat Clinton. Trump has challenged that assessment and has yet to say whether a full briefing with intelligence officials last week did anything to sway him.