Donald Trump dismissed claims that he owed his election victory to Moscow’s interference on Thursday as he insisted: “Russia is fake news.”



The US president, who has been rocked by the resignation of his national security adviser and dogged by months of speculation about his links to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, repeatedly denied reports he or associates on his presidential campaign had had contact with Russian intelligence operatives in advance of the November election, calling the reports “fake news”.

“Russia is a ruse ... Russia is a ruse,” Trump said, echoing an earlier assertion that the story was an attempt by Democrats to justify Hillary Clinton’s election loss. “I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia. Not that I wouldn’t. I just have nobody to speak to. I spoke to [Russian president Vladimir] Putin twice. He called me on the election. I told you this. And he called me on the inauguration, a few days ago.”

The New York Times and CNN published reports on Tuesday saying that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and at least three other Trump associates had had what CNN called “constant contact” with Russian operatives before the election. Barack Obama sanctioned Russia in December for what he described as its efforts to tamper with the presidential election, activity that intelligence agencies have concluded sought to tip the election in Trump’s favor.

“To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with” had contacts with Russia during the campaign, Trump said. “Manafort has totally denied it,” he said. “He said no ... Now, he was replaced long before the election.”

Manafort, a former lobbyist for a pro-Moscow political party operating in Ukraine and other regional entities, resigned from the Trump campaign in August 2016, after facing pressure to explain his lobbying of the US government on behalf of foreign governments without being properly registered.

Focus on Trump’s Russia ties intensified after it emerged last week, via numerous leaks from intelligence sources, that the former national security adviser Michael Flynn had discussed Obama’s sanctions with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, on the day they were announced. The former acting attorney general Sally Yates advised the White House in late January that Flynn may have broken the law by negotiating with a country in a diplomatic dispute with the US. Trump was not yet president when Flynn spoke to Kislyak and Flynn was not yet national security adviser.

At Thursday’s news conference – during which Trump took frequent detours to provide commentary on his relations with his press, his own popularity, the quality of the questions being asked and his election victory – Trump provided new detail of Flynn’s ouster from the administration, stating clearly for the first time that Flynn had been fired for failing to fully brief Vice-President Mike Pence on his conversations with Kislyak.

“I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence, very simple,” Trump said. The president denied having known at the time that Flynn, then a private citizen, had discussed the sanctions. “Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. So it certainly would have been OK with me if he did it,” Trump said. “I would have directed him to do it if he wasn’t doing it, because that’s his job.”

Yates advised the White House that Flynn may have violated the Logan Act, which pertains to the dealings of US citizens with foreign countries. Trump said on Thursday that his White House counsel, Donald McGahn, had advised him that Flynn had not likely broken the law.

“I don’t think he did anything wrong” in discussing sanctions with Kislyak, Trump said of Flynn. “If anything, he did something right. He was just doing his job.”

Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “The fact that Donald Trump believes General Flynn was right to do what he did – undermining US sanctions on Russia – is outrageous and part of a larger pattern of disturbing pro-Putin policies of Trump’s, including undermining Nato and refusing to personally condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine.”

Three congressional committees have opened separate investigations into alleged ties between Trump and his associates and Russia during 2016. Trump repeatedly declared on Thursday that those ties were nonexistent, accusing the media of making up news meant to hurt him.

“You can talk all you want about Russia, which is all a fake-news fabricated deal,” Trump said. “I saw a couple people who were supposedly involved. It’s all fake news. The press should be ashamed of themselves, and the people who gave the information should be ashamed of themselves.

“It’s a joke.”

Trump said another reported associate suspected of having contacts with Russia, unnamed by the president in the news conference, was not in fact an associate. “I hadn’t spoken to them,” Trump said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met him.

“I didn’t do anything for Russia. I’ve done nothing for Russia,” Trump added. He ridiculed Clinton for handing the Russian foreign minister a “reset button” during her time as secretary of state, calling that prop “her stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks”.

“If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing,” he continued, claiming the press wanted him to get into a conflict over reports that a Russian surveillance ship has been loitering off the shore of New England, a Russian missile test and a recent encounter between a Russian plane and a US ship.

“The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles offshore right out of the water,” Trump said.

“The false, horrible fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia,” the president continued. “And probably Putin said, you know, ‘I see what’s happening in the United States … it’s going to be impossible for President Trump to get along with Russia.’ And that’s a shame.

“It would be much easier for me to be so tough on Russia, the tougher I am on Russia the better, but you know what? I want to do the right thing for the American people. And to be honest, secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world.

“They’re a very powerful nuclear country and so are we. If we have a good relationship with Russia, believe me, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Trump said he had had intelligence briefings on the matter and, although he was not willing to divulge classified information, he could say that “nuclear holocaust would be like no other”.



