(CNSNews.com) - During a joint press conference with President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, when asked whether he had compromising material on President Donald Trump or his family, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not say yes or no.
Instead, the Russian leader said he did not even know Trump was in Russia in 2013 when a dossier, which has since been discredited, was compiled by former Russian intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
“Yeah, I did heard these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Now, 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 said.
“Well, let’s take St. Petersburg Economic Forum, for instance. There were over 500 American businessmen -- high-ranking, high-level ones. I don’t even remember the last names of each and every one of them. “Well, do you remember -- do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them?” he asked.
“Well, it’s difficult to imagine an utter nonsense of a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard these issues and don’t think about this anymore again,” Putin said.
“It would have been out long ago,” Trump interjected.
“And if anybody watched Peter Strzok testify over the last couple of days -- and I was in Brussels watching it -- it was a disgrace to the FBI, it was a disgrace to our country, and, you would say, that was a total witch hunt,” the president added.