An outraged President-elect Donald Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets Wednesday afternoon, ripping intelligence officials over what appears to be a leaked report claiming the Russian government possesses sensitive personal and business information on Trump.
The report, allegedly made by a British ex-intel agent, was given to US officials, CNN reported on Tuesday. A document purporting to be the report was subsequently leaked to Buzzfeed and publicized.
Trump blasted the report on Tuesday, calling allegations Russia was holding potentially compromising secrets “fake news”.
On Wednesday the Russian government also rejected the claim, saying it had no such material on the American President-elect.
"The Kremlin does not have compromising information on Trump," Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Dmitry Peskov said.
Later on Wednesday, Trump again slammed the report, in a series of four tweets, calling it “nonsense”, “fake news”, and comparing its release to a political assassination attempt.
“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?,” Trump tweeted.
“I win an election easily, a great ‘movement’ is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!
“Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is ‘A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.’ Very unfair!”
The veracity of the report leaked to Buzzfeed, which the site claims is unverifiable, has been questioned given some of the extravagant and at times bizarre assertions it makes.
According to CNN a two-page summary of the report was given by US intelligence officials to both President Obama and President-elect Trump.
John Podhoretz, a Trump critic, slammed the report in a New York Post op-ed piece on Tuesday, saying the claims brought “fake news to a new level.”