WASHINGTON: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has no knowledge of a reported pre-inauguration proposal by Jared Kushner – US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide – to set up a secret, bug-proof communications channel with the Kremlin.
In an interview aired on NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, Putin again flatly denied US intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia meddled via hacking and other means in the US election to help Trump win. He said there may have been non-Russian hackers from anywhere that simply blamed Russia.
This charge – and even more damning suggestions that the Trump administration actually colluded in such an effort – are at the core of a high-stake probe by a US special counsel and congressional committees. Trump’s most ardent critics are already talking about impeachment.
The remarks were the latest in a series of denials from Moscow that have had little impact so far on a political crisis in the United States over potential links between Russia and Trump’s inner circle.
Putin also said he had no idea if the Russian ambassador to Washington had held contacts with the Trump campaign before the November election.
“I’m being honest. Do you think that from all over the world and the United States, the ambassador reports to me every day who he eats with or meets with,” Putin said.
The Washington Post had reported that in a New York meeting in December with Russian ambassador to Washington Sergei Kislyak, the 36-year-old Kushner suggested setting up a back channel of communications with Moscow.
Putin, in the interview with Kelly in St. Petersburg, said, “I don’t know about this proposal. No proposal like that came to me.”
The Russian president said that had there been a proposal and it was appealing to the Russians, his foreign minister would have told him.
“There wasn’t anything to talk about,” Putin said through an interpreter.
“For me, this is just amazing. You create a sensation out of nothing and out of this sensation, you turn it into a weapon of war against the current president. Well, this is, you know, you’re just, you people are so creative over there. Good job. Your lives must be boring,” said Putin.
Former CIA Director John Brennan last month said he had noticed contacts between Trump’s campaign associates and Russia during the 2016 election and grew concerned Moscow had sought to lure Americans down “a treasonous path”.
In the interview, Putin also said he had only a brief and passing acquaintance with former US national security adviser Michael Flynn, though the two sat next to each other at a dinner in Moscow in 2015.
Putin minimised his contact with Flynn, who was fired by Trump in February after offering misleading descriptions of conversations he had had before the inauguration with ambassador Kislyak.
In addition, Putin told NBC that regardless of Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman, he had had no relationship with him and had never met him. Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.
“Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”
Putin told Kelly that the dinner, where the two met, was routine.
“I made my speech. Then we talked about some other stuff. And I got up and left. And then afterward I was told, ‘You know, there was an American gentleman, he was involved in some things. He used to be in the security services.'”
“That’s it,” Putin said. “I didn’t even really talk to him. That’s the extent of my acquaintance with Mr. Flynn.”
Pictures show the two men at a table for 10 at an event sponsored by Russian television network Russia Today (RT), which French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced as a source of “lying propaganda” in the recent French election and US officials consider a state-run propaganda outlet and purveyor of disinformation about the US.
An oft-published photo of him sitting next to Putin at a gala dinner, however, seems to hint he had close relations.
The contacts Flynn and other Trump aides had with Russian officials and bankers are drawing intense scrutiny, particularly after US intelligence agencies concluded that Russian hackers meddled in the American election.
When the Senate intelligence committee in May demanded that Flynn provide a list of any contacts with Russian officials during the presidential campaign and transition, Flynn invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination and refused.
Trump has strongly defended Flynn, saying his former aide was the victim of a witch hunt.
Senators will be grilling ex-FBI chief James Comey, who was fired four years into his 10-year term, on Thursday about an Oval Office meeting in February at which, Comey later told aides, Trump asked him to end the investigation into Flynn and possible Russia links. He quotes Trump as saying, “I hope you can let this go.”
