President Trump expressed confidence that the Russians do not have compromising information about him, arguing that if they did, that dirt would have already been released.
“[Putin] said as strongly as you can say it, they have no information on Trump. It was an interesting statement, too,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview Monday, recorded right after Trump’s press conference in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“One thing you know, if they had it, it would have been out. He said it’s nonsense,” he continued.
[More: Sean Hannity torches Republicans unhappy with Trump’s Helsinki press conference]
The question of whether Russia has damaging information on Trump has been fueled by the infamous Trump dossier, published in full by BuzzFeed early last year, which contains salacious details about the president’s 2013 trip to Moscow. Many of the allegations have been unconfirmed and Trump has denied they are true.
In a joint press conference earlier Monday, Putin said he did not even know Trump was in Moscow five years earlier. However, the Russian president did not specially say he did not have compromising information about Trump.
“And now, to the compromising material,” he said. “Yeah, I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Well, distinguished colleague, let me tell you this: When President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.”
Putin told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview after the summit that Trump was of “no interest” to Russia during the 2013 trip.
“It’s clear that we did nothing of that kind of against Mr. Trump,” Putin said.
