Trump blasts ‘fake news’ after report Russia tried to compromise him

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted the latest reports that claim the Russian government compiled information to compromise him.

“Fake news — a total political witch hunt!” Trump tweeted.

FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

CNN on Tuesday reported that intelligence chiefs presented a two-page synopsis of outside intelligence memos to Trump and President Obama last week that included allegations that Russian operatives have compromising information on Trump.

The two-page document was presented as an appendix to the main intelligence report on Russia’s hacking campaign during the 2016 election.

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The memos were drafted by a former British intelligence operative who now leads a private intelligence gathering firm, CNN reported.

According to CNN, the memos originated as opposition research that was commissioned by anti-Trump Republican donors and later by Democratic donors who backed Hillary Clinton.

Some of the memos had been circulating since last summer, but CNN reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have since been able to check out the former British intelligence operative and his European network, including some of it in their briefing of the president-elect.

Two national security officials also told CNN that the two-page synopsis mentioned allegations about an exchange of information between several Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government during the presidential campaign.

According to the report, several officials with knowledge of the briefings also said that the document was not an official part of the main intelligence report.

Trump on Tuesday evening sent a series of tweets pushing back on reports surrounding the memo, including going after BuzzFeed news for publishing a report about the memo, which it described as including “explosive” but “unverified” allegations involving Trump.

BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, defended the publication of the memo in a letter to staff that he tweeted before Trump’s response: