MOSCOW—In a biting attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused the outgoing U.S. administration of trying to undermine President-elect Donald Trump by spreading fake allegations and said those who are doing it are “worse than prostitutes.”
The statement reflected the Kremlin’s boiling anger at President Barack Obama’s administration, which declined to comment on Putin’s accusation.
Asked about an unsubstantiated dossier outlining unverified claims that Trump engaged in sexual activities with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel, Putin dismissed it as “fake” and “nonsense” and said it was part of efforts by Obama’s administration to “undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect” despite his “convincing” victory.
Trump earlier rejected the sexual allegations as “fake news” and “phony stuff.”
Putin’s broadside at the White House is a culmination of tensions between Moscow and Washington, which have built up over the Ukrainian crisis, the Syrian war and the allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
“People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes,” Putin said. “They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.”
He spoke in Moscow during a news conference following talks with the president of Moldova.
The Russian leader ridiculed the authors of the Trump dossier for alleging that Russian spy agencies were collecting compromising material on Trump when he visited Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant.
