Donald Trump, his incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and the foreign nation with which Trump is accused of having secret connections all denied claims made in an unverified report drafted by a former British intelligence agent and published by BuzzFeed Tuesday. Trump, who tweeted Tuesday night that the report is “fake news” amounting to “a total political witch hunt,” logged on Wednesday morning to rant once again about the story.
The line quoted in the above tweet comes from Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who told reporters Wednesday, “The Kremlin does not engage in collecting compromising information.” He blamed Trump’s enemies for the report and, like Trump, called it a “witch hunt.”
Trump’s final tweet of his morning rant blamed U.S. intelligence agencies for allowing the report to be leaked. He also invoked Godwin’s law by comparing the country he’s days away from leading to Nazi Germany.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s pick for chief of staff, was also on the defensive this morning, telling Today that not only are the contents of the report “offensive crap” but Trump was never given a summary of the allegations, as CNN reported Tuesday.
“We’re talking about fake news. It’s shameful. It isn’t a document that came from our intel community. It’s oppo research that’s been floating around for months,” he said. “It’s all phony-baloney garbage.”
Another revelation on the subject also came Wednesday morning, when Senator John McCain released a statement saying that late last year he gave the report that connects Trump to Russia to the FBI.
