Trump slams 'fake news' during press conference
The President-elect denies reports made against him in a Buzzfeed article
The nation's top intel chief called President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday to personally deny leaking to the media a dubious dossier of allegations about sensitive information the Russians supposedly had about him.
Trump confirmed Thursday that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper spoke to him by phone, apparently sometime after a press conference in which Trump lashed out at media outlets, including Buzzfeed and CNN, that ran with the story and speculated it was leaked by federal officials.
"James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated," Trump tweeted. "Made up, phony facts.Too bad!"
On Wednesday, Clapper released a rare statement addressing rising tensions between spy agency chiefs and Trump, who believes the intel community has become politicized and is working to undermine him. He also acknowledged contacting Trump directly to express "profound dismay" about the leaks to CNN and Buzzfeed — the latter of which published the unverified allegations in full.
"I emphasized that this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC," Clapper said. "The IC has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions."
Several media outlets reported that the salacious material, originally compiled by a former British intelligence officer turned political consultant, was relayed to Trump when he was briefed on the intelligence community's evidence of Russian hacking in the 2016 election.
But Trump never received any summary of unsubstantiated allegations that Russian spies had collected compromising financial and personal information about him, a highly placed transition source told Fox News Wednesday.
The source said that intelligence officials who briefed Trump on Friday brought up the allegations verbally, but added that they were "barely mentioned in passing."
A government source told Fox News that the intelligence community wanted to give Trump a heads-up that the allegations had been widely circulating and that a lot of media outlets were sitting on the story. The source said the claims did not constitute a "central element" of Trump's briefing.
CNN initially reported that Trump and President Obama were presented with a two-page summary that detailed the allegations. The report said the summary was attached to a broader report about Russian operatives' activities during the 2016 election.
At the Wednesday press conference, Trump said that he had learned details of the allegations "outside of the meeting" with intelligence officials.
"It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen," Trump said, later adding. "But I read what was released and I think it's a disgrace. I think it's an absolute disgrace."
Fox News' John Roberts and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
