I really don’t have blackmail material on Trump, Putin insists

Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly denied he had any compromising material about US President Donald Trump in a sometimes combative televised interview broadcast on Sunday.

“Well, this is just another load of nonsense,” Putin said on NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, when asked whether he had any damaging information on the Republican president.

The remarks were the latest in a series of denials from Moscow that have had little impact so far on a political crisis in the United States over potential links between Russia and Trump’s inner circle.

The issue will be front and centre this week in Washington, where former FBI Director James Comey is due to testify on whether Trump tried to get him to back off an investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s election campaign and Moscow.

Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential election, was fired by Trump last month, four years into his 10-year term.

Putin also told NBC he had no relationship with Trump and never met him, regardless of Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman. Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.