Kremlin: Claims of Russian backing for Trump in US election 'untrue' & down to 'paranoia'

21 Feb, 2020 10:30 / Updated 1 hour ago

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© Reuters / KEVIN LAMARQUE 

By Bryan MacDonald

Vladimir Putin's spokesman says statements suggesting Russia plans to interfere in this year's US Presidential election "don't have anything in common with the truth."

Dmitry Peskov slammed the idea that Moscow will attempt to help President Donald Trump achieve re-election as being of "paranoid character."

He was responding to US media reports which claimed US intelligence has warned politicians that Moscow is already laying the groundwork to get behind the Republican Party incumbent. 

CNN, quoting its usual anonymous sources, told of a briefing where Russian readiness to use hacking, the 'weaponisation' of social media, and attacks on election infrastructure was outlined. 

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The new scare has echoes of the hysteria around the 2016 campaign when Trump unexpectedly beat favorite Hillary Clinton. That led to years of speculation, much of it often xenophobic, before special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.

"Unfortunately, there will be more and more [paranoia] as we approach the elections," Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Friday afternoon. 

The New York Times, also relying on unnamed 'insiders,' kicked of the latest furore on Thursday evening when it reported how "intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected... a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him."

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The latest news of so-called Russian meddling comes shortly after reports that Trump had offered jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a pardon if he would publicly deny that Russia had anything to do with email leaks from the DNC which damaged Clinton in 2016.

That bombshell news seemed to be a willful misinterpretation of a statement presented by Assange’s barrister Edward Fitzgerald regarding a visit to the Australian by US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher – where, according to earlier reports, he was offered “definitive proof that Russia was not the source” of the DNC emails.

Nonetheless, US media has once again spun into overdrive about alleged Russian interference, despite lacking any proof or evidence, just in time for the next presidential election cycle.