Putin: Obama administration trying to undermine Trump
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused the outgoing U.S. administration of trying to undermine President-elect Donald Trump by spreading fake allegations.
MOSCOW >> President Vladimir Putin took a parting shot at the Obama administration today, accusing it of trying to undermine Donald Trump’s legitimacy with fake allegations and “binding the president-elect hand and foot to prevent him from fulfilling his election promises.”
In his first public remarks about an unsubstantiated dossier outlining unverified claims that Trump engaged in sexual activities with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel, Putin dismissed the material as “nonsense.”
“People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes,” Putin said. “They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.”
Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, was a “rude provocation.” The diplomat contemptuously called its author a “runaway swindler from MI6,” Britain’s foreign intelligence agency. Trump has rejected the sexual allegations as “fake news” and “phony stuff.”
The statements by Putin and Lavrov reflected the Kremlin’s deep anger at President Barack Obama’s administration in a culmination of tensions that have built up over the crisis in Ukraine, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
Putin said the allegations were part of efforts by the Obama administration to “undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect” despite his “convincing” victory.
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Asked about Putin’s remarks, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it “was not the first time the intelligence community has had some uncomfortable things to say about Russia.”
“These are the kind of things I’m sure the Russians would rather not to hear, but ultimately, and this is something that the next administration is going to have to decide, there’s a pretty stark divide here,” he added.
Putin voiced hope that “common sense will prevail” and Russia and the United States will be able to normalize relations once Trump takes office Friday.
“I don’t know Mr. Trump,” Putin said. “I have never met him and I don’t know what he will do on the international arena. I have no reason whatsoever to assail him, criticize him for something, or defend him.”
Putin ridiculed those behind the dossier for alleging Russian spy agencies collected compromising material on Trump when he visited Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant.
“He wasn’t a politician. We didn’t even know about his political ambitions,” Putin said at a news conference. “Do they think that our special services are hunting for every U.S. billionaire?”
Putin also sarcastically suggested that Trump, who met the world’s most beautiful women at the pageant, had a better choice for female companionship than Moscow prostitutes, even though Putin claimed “they are also the best in the world.”
He said Trump’s foes are ready to go as far as to “stage a Maidan in Washington to prevent Trump from entering office” — a reference to the alleged U.S. role in organizing protests in the Ukrainian capital’s main square, Maidan, that forced the nation’s Russia-friendly president from power in 2014.
“People who are doing that are inflicting colossal damage to the interests of the United States,” Putin said. “How can you do anything to improve U.S.-Russian relations when they launch such canards as hackers’ interference in the election?”
At a separate news conference, Lavrov also said Moscow hopes for better relations with Washington once Trump takes office.
Russia and the United States can reach common ground on nuclear arms control and other issues if each country proceeds from its national interests and shows respect for the other side, Lavrov said.
He voiced hope that Trump’s team will consist of pragmatic people “who will not engage in moralizing and will try to understand the interests of their partners just as they clearly uphold their own interests.”
Lavrov denounced the foreign policy of the Obama administration and its allies as “messianic” attempts to impose Western values on the rest of the world, which has led to instability and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
He said Moscow is inviting representatives of the Trump administration to talks Monday on Syria in Kazakhstan — discussions brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran. He voiced hope that Russian and U.S. experts could discuss fighting terrorism in Syria.
Asked about Trump’s recent remarks in which he indicated he could end sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal, Lavrov said Moscow was ready to hold nuclear arms talks with Washington.
Lavrov noted he didn’t see Trump’s words as an offer to cut arms in exchange for canceling the sanctions, rather as an expression of readiness to look at reviewing the sanctions while engaging in negotiations on arms control, among other issues.
Like Putin, Lavrov rejected allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election as “absurdities” and “fakes” intended to hurt Trump.
He said U.S. intelligence agencies have failed to produce any evidence to back those claims, adding that officials who engaged in the effort “deserve to be fired, as they receive their salaries for nothing.”
Lavrov described the allegations of Russian election meddling in the U.S. vote as the final “spasms of those who realize that their time is coming to an end.”
“The time of foreign policy demagogues is over, and, feeling hurt, they fabricate all kinds of fakes,” he said. “First, officials leak fakes to the media, then media start spinning them and, finally, officials comment on them as facts.”
Lavrov also accused U.S. officials of repeated attempts to recruit Russian diplomats in the U.S. as spies, including a deputy chief of mission.
In her final speech as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power accused Russia of pursuing a policy of “deny and lie” to raise doubts about its actions in Syria and Ukraine, to undermine international institutions and, citing U.S. intelligence analysis, repeated allegations that Moscow used a well-crafted, multipronged attack to disrupt the U.S. election through hacking and misinformation.
“I know some have said that this focus on Russia is simply the party that lost the recent presidential election being ‘sore losers,’” Power told the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, “but it should worry every American that a foreign government interfered in our democratic process.”
She said the U.S. must reassure its allies that Russia will pay a price for interfering in other nations’ sovereign affairs, and that means maintaining sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine as well as meddling in U.S. politics.
10 responses to “Putin: Obama administration trying to undermine Trump”
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People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes. They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.
Well said, Vladimir!
Truth is truth no matter who speaks it.
Quake in fear little snowflakes
Tremble, shiver
Thanks to arrows of TRUTH
Sped from our bountiful quiver
FINALLY in the WH a patriotic American
One whose winning campaign
He so tremendously ran
So we deplorables could survive the pain
Soon in all media will appear
His victorious smiling face
To remind one and all
That all is NOT about race
For an octave of years
We’ve suffered the torment
At the hands of one who should
Never ever have been President
So squirm, snivel, hide, and tremble
You sour grape losers
At the hands of Electors
Intelligent vote choosers
Putin: “These are fabrications. Trust me. I know. People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes. They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.”
[ALTERNATE TRANSLATION – “These are obvious fabrications. People who order fakes of the type now circulating against the U.S. president-elect, who concoct them and use them in a political battle, are worse than prostitutes because they don’t have any moral boundaries at all.”]
Thos: “Well said, Vladimir!”
I agree with your sentiment, comrade Thos.
Your loyalty is duly noted.
Finally, someone strong and virile has stepped up and spoken out to put these nasty rumors to bed. For good.
(No not you Thos. Our handsome leader with the icy blue eyes.)
Anyone who disputes this is just like the Kompromat calling the Kettle black.
That’s a pun, Thos, get it?
No? Well, never mind then.
Read this insead:
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-kompromat-20170111-story.html
So our current Campaigner in Chief and Divider in Chief will soon become our Fabricator in Chief.
How ironic to have another Tyrant protect and come to the aid of our Tyrant. These two deserve each other. Trump is, by the way, a total joke in Russia. The country howls with laughter with his slavery to Israel and Russia. The truth has yet to come out. Trump had a free ride with the press during the silly campaign. That might soon be ending.
Three more days of whining. Pathetic losers still chirping. smh
Or to be more specific, only 3,275 more minutes to endure an historic first: the very first POTUS we ever had who HATES America.
Then we can say “We SURVIVED transformation”!!!
HUZZAH!
Samantha Power accused Russia of using “…a well-crafted, multipronged attack to disrupt the U.S. election through hacking and misinformation.”
Since we point the finger at those outside our government, why don’t we investigate the attempted hacks into the State of Georgia’s elections computer database last year – all of which were traced back to the Dept of Homeland Security. So yes a foreign government should not interfere in another country’s election process. Nor should the Federal gov’t interfere in a State’s election process. The response from the DHS so far? Crickets.
Better get used to it AhiPoke.
The electorate awoke just in the nick of time to prevent our suffering another 4 years of “transformation” authored by the current occupant of the White House – – by which he intended not so much transformation as destruction of the country said occupant loathes and despises more than any other on the face of this earth, America.
And no wonder. He never even set food on American mainland until he was eighteen, by which time his hate-America disposition was set for all time.
Consider what actually happened to so poison the mind of an otherwise intelligent youth who MIGHT have been one to bring this nation together, but who instead did his best to rip it apart.
A rebellious teen, Stanley Ann Dunham living on very liberal Mercer Island with her affluent parents, got herself impregnated by a man of African ancestry (some think it might have been Jimi Hendrix). Her parents made a hasty move out of their wealthy mostly white community to racially tolerant Hawaii. There they located a UH exchange student from Kenya who, for cash on the barrel head, would agree to “marry” the girl so she would not give birth to a mixed race b a s t a r d out of wedlock. Not long after the baby made his appearance, his “daddy” skedaddled off to a school in New England where – – despite being married to the white girl in Hawaii and a Kenyan woman in Africa – – he took up with yet another woman. Thereafter upon his return to his home he made a career out of shameless self promotion (sound familiar?) that netted him, initially, an impressive government job. He then went backwards down the government career ladder as his fictitious braggadocio – – coupled with his gorgeous thirst for the high octane distillate from Scotland – – became more widely known. It was the combo of booze and high speed driving that finally did him in.
Meanwhile his “son” was taken by his mother halfway round the world where he spent his young, most formative years in Muslim saturated Indonesia where he learned to appreciate, inter alia, the beauty of the daily calls to prayer by the local muezzin.
The mother of this TRUE African American dragged her young son around like a tumbleweed in pursuit of her ‘career’ as an academic, finally returned to Hawaii and dumped him on her mother to raise. It was during this period that he fell under the spell of an enchanting mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a committed Communist who despise American capitalism and taught the young boy to hate America.
Having marinated in this toxic stew, he never even set foot on the American mainland for his first 18 years. His claim to be a real American is a false as the promises he made to sell the Obamacare swindle to the gullible.
The losers tryimg to undermine Trump. Putin is not a tyrant: He is the only power that prevents anarchy which happened in the other countries we “liberated”.