Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed challenges to the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump's election victory, saying Trump's detractors "fabricate information and use it in the political struggle; they are worse than prostitutes; they have no moral limits."
Putin, speaking at a news conference in Moscow, also dismissed as fake reports of an alleged Russian dossier on Trump, saying Russian security services do not "chase" every U.S. billionaire.
The dossier, described in a document published online by BuzzFeed last week, indicates Russian operatives obtained unverified, salacious and potentially compromising personal and financial information about the president-elect. Trump, who is inaugurated this Friday, immediately dismissed the reports as “fake news.”
On Tuesday, Putin concurred.
"Trump, when he came to Moscow a few years ago was not a politician," Putin said, according to a Sputnik News translation. "We did not even know about his political ambitions, he was just a businessman, one of the richest men in America.
"Is someone really thinking that our intelligence agencies are chasing every American billionaire, or what? Of course not! It's just a complete nonsense."
Trump, he said, was a victim of an "acute political struggle" in the U.S. Putin said Trump's foes hope to "tie the hands of legs of the newly elected president" and thus make it more difficult for Trump to implement his campaign promises.
Putin said the controversy over Trump reflects a "degradation of political elites" in the West but said he hopes common sense will prevail.
"I don't know Mr. Trump, I have never met him," Putin said. "I don't know what he will do in the international arena, so I have no reason either to attack him, criticize him or defend him."
