Putin did not specifically deny he has 'compromising material' on Trump
- Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire "went there" yesterday. He asked, "Does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or his family?"
- Putin did not immediately say no. He gave a lengthy answer and then added, "it's difficult to imagine utter nonsense on a bigger scale than this."
- Whether that is a denial is open to interpretation.
- Even the video existed, Putin would never admit it.
In their wild press conference yesterday, perhaps the most uncomfortable moment came when Russian president Vladimir Putin was asked whether he had "compromising material" on US President Donald Trump. That's a reference to the infamous, unproven existence of a years-old video of Trump with two prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.
The gossipy allegation - vehemently denied by Trump - first emerged in the Steele dossier, a document listing everything that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele heard from his intelligence sources about the Trump campaign's connections to Russia in 2016. Russian security services are notorious for gathering compromising information on potential targets.
No such video has ever been aired publicly.
But Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire "went there" yesterday. He asked, "Does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or his family?"
Putin's response appears to be a denial. He said:
"And now to the compromising material. Yeah, I did heard 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 in 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. 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. Do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them? Well, it's difficult to imagine utter nonsense on a bigger scale than this. Please disregard these issues and don't think about this anymore again."
There is a lot going on in that answer. The first few sentences aren't anything close to a denial. Then Putin starts talking - unprompted - about how the Russian security services definitely don't bug the attendees of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, because there are so many of them. (That ought to be reassuring!) He doesn't specifically say "we didn't do this." Instead, he argues that it is logistically too difficult to bug everyone the Russian state might be interested in recording.
Only then does Putin add, "it's difficult to imagine utter nonsense on a bigger scale than this."
That sounds like a denial. But it comes after the stuff about St. Petersburg, not as a direct response to the original question. So Putin's answer is open to interpretation. If you believe that Putin was being deliberately elliptical in order to indicate that he might have such a tape, but he wanted to make it sound like a polite denial - that's your answer. Alternatively, it's a denial. (Of course, all this is academic: If such a video did exist Putin would never admit it.)
Trump, obviously, heard the denial he wanted. "And I have to say if they had it, it would have been out long ago," he said in answer to the same question.
Read the full transcript of the press conference here or watch it here.