Trump lashes out over Russia claims.
Donald Trump’s first press conference since July had originally been called to demonstrate how he would avoid conflicts of interest involving his business empire. But the event was heavily overshadowed by news that the FBI had been handed unverified but potentially damaging intelligence, including claims of alleged sexual impropriety in a Moscow hotel room. The president-elect attacked intelligence agencies and specific news organizations, notably CNN, which reported that Trump and Obama had been briefed about a summary of a memo on Trump’s alleged links with Moscow, and BuzzFeed, which published the document – that claimed Russian operatives had gathered compromising material against him – in full. Trump called the dossier “fake news”. The person who produced the dossier detailing the allegations against Trump was named on Wednesday as 52-year-old former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, who co-founded the London-based firm Orbis Business Intelligence. Here’s the story of how the documents came to light.