Trump calls report of Kremlin plot to put him in office ‘disgusting’ and ‘fake news’

The denunciation comes after a report that the Kremlin agreed that Trump’s presidency was in Russia’s strategic interests.

Donald Trump walks with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and others to visit St John’s Church on June 1, 2020, in Washington, DC. (AFP via Getty Images)

Former president Donald Trump decried a news report saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized an operation to put Trump into office as “disgusting” and “fiction.”

Mr Trump’s remarks come after a report in the Guardian of leaked Kremlin documents that said on 22 January 2016, Mr Putin, his spy chiefs and senior ministers agreed that a Trump administration was in Russia’s strategic interests such as causing “social turmoil” and weakening the president’s negotiating position.

The report said a decree signed by Putin ordered that Russia’s three spy agencies find practical ways to support Trump, by then the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

“This is disgusting. It’s fake news, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA was fake news,” Mr Trump said through a statement via his spokeswoman Liz Harrington on Twitter. The former president added that the allegation was “just the Radical Left crazies” demeaning the right.

“It’s fiction, and nobody was tougher on Russia than me, including on the pipeline, and sanctions,” Mr Trump, who is banned from Twitter, said. “At the same time we got along with Russia. Russia respected us, China respected us, Iran respected us, North Korea respected us.”

But despite Mr Trump’s objections, the Guardian showed the papers to independent experts who said they appeared genuine.

The Russia report called “No 32-04 \ vd” was classified as secret and called Trump the “most promising candidate” from Russia’s point of view and described Mr Trump as “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex.”

The Kremlin also seemed to confirm that it had kompromat, or compromising material on Mr Trump from his “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.”