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Putin Said to Tell Pence: Russia Did Not Meddle in US Elections

Putin Said to Tell Pence: Russia Did Not Meddle in US Elections
folder_openEurope... access_time5 years ago
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Local Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin told United States Vice President Mike Pence that Moscow was not involved in any interference in the 2016 US election, according to a report by Interfax news agency Monday.

Pence and Putin met in Singapore last week to discuss upcoming meetings between the Russian leader and US President Donald Trump set to take place at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires later this month, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

 “The Russian state had nothing to do… and cannot have anything to do with meddling,” in US elections, the report quoted Peskov as saying.

In September, Trump signed an executive order allowing punitive sanctions on foreigners who interfere in US elections, just two years after Russia allegedly meddled to help him win.

The order set up a formal process to put financial penalties and blocks both on actors seen trying to hack into voting systems and those spreading disinformation through media and online -- both of which took place in the 2016 election.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other US intelligence chiefs have said since the beginning of 2017 that Putin presided over a concerted effort via hacking and social media manipulation to boost Trump's chances in 2016 to defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The outgoing Barack Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions and expelled a large number of alleged Russian spies in retaliation for the interference.

But since becoming president, Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea that he was helped by Moscow, calling it "fake news," and has avoided criticizing Putin.

Instead, the main action taken since then has been indictments issued by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible collusion with Russia.

In the past year Mueller's team has filed charges against 12 hackers of the Russian GRU intelligence agency, and 13 people, including a top Putin crony, linked to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which US intelligence says is a major source of online disinformation.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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