REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed back on Tuesday against unverified claims that Russia worked with Donald Trump during the US presidential election to undermine Hillary Clinton. 
 
 "We are witnessing an ongoing acute political struggle in the US, whose task is to undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect," Putin said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. 
 
 He added that those behind the claims, included in a dossier made public last week, were "worse than prostitutes." 
 
 "I have an impression they practiced in Kiev and are ready to organize a Maidan in Washington, just to not let Trump take office," Putin said, referring to the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that led to the ouster of the country's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. 
 
 "The media frenzy surrounding Trump speaks of the degradation of US political elites," Putin said, adding that he was "not acquainted with Trump" and therefore had "no reasons either to defend or attack him." 
 
 The dossier was part of an opposition-research project conducted by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, at the behest of anti-Trump Republicans and, later, Democrats. Steele was the former head of the Russia desk in Moscow for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. The memos he wrote made their way to US intelligence officials sometime last year. 
 
 A summary of his findings, collected from the network of Russian intelligence sources he had cultivated, was presented to Trump, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and the country's top lawmakers on intelligence matters earlier this month as part of a classified briefing about Russia's intervention in the US presidential election. 
 
 The dossier suggested, among other things, that Russian officials fed hacked Democratic documents to WikiLeaks in exchange for Trump sidelining Ukraine as a campaign issue; that Trump hired sex workers to perform lewd acts in a Moscow Ritz-Carlton presidential suite where President Barack Obama once stayed; and that what the dossier described as "Trump's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years" provided Russians with information they could use to blackmail him. 
 
 Putin mocked the claims contained in the dossier, which he described as "an obvious fake" and "nonsense." 
 
 Russian intelligence services "don't chase every American billionaire," Putin said. He added that Trump "has been with the most beautiful women in the world, so why would he need prostitutes in Moscow?" 
 
 "Trump organized beauty contests," Putin continued. "I find it hard to believe that he rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world." 
 
 Putin also slammed the new sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration in late December, claiming that attempts were being made to tie Trump's "hands and feet" while he was performing his election campaign promises to try to improve relations with Russia. 
 
 "Some people leave without saying goodbye, and some say goodbye without leaving," Putin said. "The Obama administration belongs to the second category." 
 
 Throughout the campaign, Trump broke from traditional GOP orthodoxy and established himself as the most sympathetic Republican candidate toward Russia, stressing a need to work with the country on various geopolitical issues. 
 
 Trump has not commented on the dossier's specific claims, but has called the dossier itself "fake news" and "a complete fraud." 
 
 Watch Putin's remarks here: ||||| President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press) 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press) 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press) President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST): 
 
 8:39 a.m. 
 
 Russian President Vladimir Putin is accusing the Obama administration of trying to undermine President-elect Donald Trump by spreading fake allegations. 
 
 Putin, speaking at a news conference in Moscow Tuesday, described a dossier on Trump as part of efforts by the Obama administration to "undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect" despite his "convincing" victory. 
 
 Putin dismissed as "fake" the dossier's unverified allegations about Trump's sexual activities at a Moscow hotel. He added that people who ordered it are "worse than prostitutes." 
 
 Trump has rejected the allegations as "fake news" and "phony stuff." 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:10 a.m. 
 
 Donald Trump is shrugging off polls that show him with low approval ratings. 
 
 The president-elect tweeted early Tuesday, "The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before." 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:49 a.m. 
 
 A son of Martin Luther King Jr. says Donald Trump is talking unity. 
 
 Martin Luther King III said the president-elect spoke in a private meeting Sunday of representing all Americans. King III said he believes "that's his intent." 
 
 Trump met with King's son on the holiday marking the life of the assassinated civil rights icon, just days after the president-elect had gone on Twitter to strike back fiercely at Lewis for questioning the legitimacy of the billionaire businessman's election as president. Lewis and the elder King were among the Big Six civil rights leaders of the 1960s. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump was not told about unverified reports that Russia has compromising information on him during last week's intelligence briefing, according to a senior intelligence official with knowledge of preparations for the briefing. 
 
 A summary of the unverified reports was prepared as background material for the briefing, but not discussed during the meeting, the official said. During Trump's press conference Wednesday morning, the president-elect said he was made aware of the information "outside that meeting." 
 
 A 35-page memorandum published by BuzzFeed on Tuesday includes claims that the Russian government has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for five years — even obtaining compromising information in an effort to blackmail him. (BuzzFeed is partially funded by the parent company of NBC News.) The document, which was not prepared by the U.S. government, contains obvious errors. It was originally generated as part of opposition research by anti-Trump Republicans and then shopped by Democrats. 
 
 Related: Seth Meyers Confronts Conway Over Trump Allegations 
 
 Two U.S. officials told NBC News that materials prepared for Trump in advance of last week's intelligence briefing included damaging allegations from the memorandum — unverified by American intelligence agencies — about his dealings with the Russians. 
 
 Officials prepared a two-page summary of the memo for Trump's briefing Friday at Trump Tower in New York. The summary was an "annex," or addendum, included in the "supporting documents" that accompanied the classified briefing report. 
 
 While multiple officials say the summary was included in the material prepared for the briefers, the senior official told NBC News that the briefing was oral and no actual documents were left with the Trump team in New York. During the briefing, the president-elect was not briefed on the contents of the summary. 
 
 “Intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government period,” the senior official said. 
 
 According to the senior official, the two-page summary about the unsubstantiated material made available to the briefers was to provide context, should they need it, to draw the distinction for Trump between analyzed intelligence and unvetted “disinformation.” 
 
 The briefers also had available to them unvetted “disinformation” about the Clinton Foundation, although that was not orally shared with Trump. 
 
 The Russian government on Wednesday denied reports that it has compromising information about Trump, dismissing the claims as a "total hoax." 
 
 Amid increased interest in the dossier Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected all of the allegations out of hand. Trump later blamed intelligence agencies for allowing the dossier to leak, tweeting: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?" 
 
 "The Kremlin does not have compromising information about Trump," Peskov said, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS. "It's a total hoax, absolute fabrication and utter nonsense. The Kremlin does not collect compromising information." 
 
 Peskov also called the reports "pulp fiction." 
 
 Trump did not respond to the reports directly but sent a tweet appearing to refer to it on Tuesday night. 
 
 Early Wednesday, he sent several others that followed Peskov's comments. 
 
 Trump has repeatedly cast doubt over findings by American intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the U.S. election with the aim of helping him win. 
 
 NBC News reported last week that the gulf between Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies had grown so wide that the two camps couldn't even agree on the scheduled date of a briefing Trump had been due to receive. 
 
 Related: Putin's Sassy Trolling Sent Message to Trump, Experts Say 
 
 Peskov mentioned Trump's initial tweet, and went on to say that some people were “boosting the hysteria and go to any lengths to maintain this state of 'witch hunting.'” 
 
 Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, told NBC News he was sure Russian officials were "thrilled" to see Americans bickering about the leaked memo. "It doesn't make us look like we are a healthy democracy." 
 
 McFaul also said that Trump had contributed to an atmosphere in which "fake news" could flourish because of his past promotion of the unfounded "birther" conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama's birthplace. 
 
 In an interview with NBC News before his farewell address Tuesday night in Chicago, Obama said he had not seen the news accounts of Trump's Russian ties but noted that "as a matter of principle and national security, I don't comment on classified information." 
 
 Last month, Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats as punishment for Russia's alleged cyberattacks in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election. 
 
 The CIA has concluded that the interference was intended to help Trump win, and intelligence officials told NBC News that they believe "with a high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the covert campaign. 
 
 Trump has been skeptical about the alleged Russian hacks, even as he repeatedly praised Putin. ||||| Senator John McCain passed documents to the FBI director, James Comey, last month alleging secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow and that Russian intelligence had personally compromising material on the president-elect himself. 
 
 
 
 The material, which has been seen by the Guardian, is a series of reports on Trump’s relationship with Moscow. They were drawn up by a former western counter-intelligence official, now working as a private consultant. BuzzFeed on Tuesday published the documents, which it said were “unverified and potentially unverifiable”. 
 
 Explainer: what is in the Trump-Russia dossier John McCain passed to the FBI? Read more 
 
 The Guardian has not been able to confirm the veracity of the documents’ contents, and the Trump team has consistently denied any hidden contacts with the Russian government. 
 
 A spokesman for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday denied Russia has collected compromising information on Trump and dismissed news reports as a “complete fabrication and utter nonsense”. Dmitry Peskov insisted that the Kremlin “does not engage in collecting compromising material”. 
 
 Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but late on Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” He made no direct reference to the allegations. 
 
 An official in the US administration who spoke to the Guardian described the source who wrote the intelligence report as consistently reliable, meticulous and well-informed, with a reputation for having extensive Russian contacts. 
 
 Some of the reports – which are dated from 20 June to 20 October last year – also proved to be prescient, predicting events that happened after they were sent. 
 
 
 
 One report, dated June 2016, claims that the Kremlin has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years, with the aim of encouraging “splits and divisions in western alliance”. 
 
 It claims that Trump had declined “various sweetener real estate deals offered him in Russia” especially in developments linked to the 2018 World Cup finals but that “he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” 
 
 Most explosively, the report alleges: “FSB has compromised Trump through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him.” The president-elect has not responded to the allegations. 
 
 The story of the Trump dossier: secret sources, an airport handoff, and John McCain Read more 
 
 CNN reported on Tuesday that the FBI was still investigating the credibility of the documents but added that the intelligence chiefs had included a summary of the material in a secret briefing on Russian interference in the election delivered last week to Barack Obama and Donald Trump. 
 
 The emergence of the documents is potentially explosive, 10 days before Trump’s inauguration and on the eve of his first planned press conference since July last year. 
 
 Despite glowing references from US and foreign officials who have worked with the source, there are some errors in the reports. One describes the Moscow suburb of Barvikha as “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates”, but although it is a very expensive neighbourhood, there are no restrictions on who can own property there. The document also misspells the name of a Russian banking corporation. 
 
 The FBI does not normally make any comment on ongoing counter-intelligence investigations but was under increasing pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to act before the inauguration, particularly because of Comey’s announcement of a continuing investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server 11 days before the election, which many of her supporters believe cost her the presidency. 
 
 
 
 The reports were initially commissioned as opposition research during the presidential campaign, but its author was sufficiently alarmed by what he discovered to send a copy to the FBI. It is unclear who within the organisation they reached and what action the bureau took. The former Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, has lambasted Comey for publicising investigations into Hillary Clinton’s private server, while allegedly sitting on “explosive” material on Trump’s ties to Russia. 
 
 Another Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, questioned Comey insistently at a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday on whether the FBI was pursuing leads on Trump campaign contacts with Russia. 
 
 “Has the FBI investigated these reported relationships?” Wyden asked. 
 
 Comey replied: “I would never comment on investigations … in a public forum. 
 
 The Guardian can confirm that the documents reached the top of the FBI by December. Senator John McCain, who was informed about the existence of the documents separately by an intermediary from a western allied state, dispatched an emissary overseas to meet the source and then decided to present the material to Comey in a one-on-one meeting on 9 December, according to a source aware of the meeting. The documents, which were first reported on last year by Mother Jones, are also in the hands of officials in the White House. 
 
 James Comey refuses to tell Senate if FBI is investigating Trump-Russia links Read more 
 
 McCain is not thought to have made a judgment on the reliability of the documents but was sufficiently impressed by the source’s credentials to feel obliged to pass them to the FBI. 
 
 The Senate armed services committee, which Senator McCain chairs, launched an inquiry last week into Russian cyber-attacks during the election. 
 
 McCain was reluctant to get involved, according to a colleague, for fear the issue would be dismissed as a personal grudge against Trump. He pushed instead for the creation of a special Senate committee to look into connections between campaign staff and Moscow, but the proposal was blocked by the Republican leadership. 
 
 McCain told the NBC programme Meet the Press on Sunday: “I would like to see a select committee. Apparently that is not in agreement by our leadership. So we will move forward with the armed services committee and I’m sure foreign relations and intelligence committee will as well.” 
 
 But the senator added: “It is possible if enough information comes out, that that decision could be reversed. I still think it’s the best way to attack the issue.” 
 
 Asked on the same programme on whether an investigation was ongoing into campaign links to Moscow, Senator Lindsey Graham, another conservative Republican said: “I believe that it’s happening.” 
 
 According to the report passed to Comey, Russian intelligence allegedly gathered compromising material during Trump’s stay in Moscow in November 2013, when he was in the city to host the Miss Universe pageant. 
 
 
 
 Another report, dated 19 July last year said that Carter Page, a businessman named by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, had held a secret meeting that month with Igor Sechin, head of the Rosneft state-owned oil company and a long-serving lieutenant of Vladimir Putin. Page also allegedly met Igor Divyekin, an internal affairs official with a background in intelligence, who is said to have warned Page that Moscow had “kompromat” (compromising material) on Trump. 
 
 Two months later, allegations of Page’s meetings surfaced in the US media, attributed to intelligence sources, along with reports that he had been under FBI scrutiny. 
 
 Page, a vociferous supporter of the Kremlin line, was in Moscow in July to make a speech decrying western policy towards Russia. At the time he declined to say whether he had been in contact with Russian officials, but in September he rejected the reports as “garbage”. 
 
 The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation. 
 
 A month after Trump’s surprise election victory, Page was back in Moscow saying he was meeting with “business leaders and thought leaders”, dismissing the FBI investigation as a “witch-hunt” and suggesting the Russian hacking of the Democratic Party alleged by US intelligence agencies, could be a false flag operation to incriminate Moscow. 
 
 Another of the reports compiled by the former western counter-intelligence official in July said that members of Trump’s team, which was led by campaign manager Paul Manafort (a former consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine), had knowledge of the DNC hacking operation, and in return “had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise US/Nato defence commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine”. 
 
 A few days later, Trump raised the possibility that his administration might recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea and openly called on Moscow to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. 
 
 In August, officials from the Trump campaign intervened in the drafting of the Republican party platform, specifically to remove a call for lethal assistance to Ukraine for its battle against Moscow-backed eastern rebels. 
 
 Trump campaign denies report of Trump Organization tie to Russian bank Read more 
 
 Manafort stepped down in August as campaign manager and the campaign steadily distanced itself from Page. However, Trump’s praise of Putin and defence of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Syria remained one of the few constants in his campaign talking points. 
 
 Manafort has denied secret links with Moscow calling the allegation “an outrageous smear being driven by Harry Reid and the Clinton campaign”. 
 
 Since then, Trump has consistently cast doubt on Russian culpability for hacking the Democratic National Committee, defying a consensus of 17 national intelligence agencies. After Obama deported 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for Moscow’s intervention, Trump praised Putin for not carrying out tit-for-tat deportations of US diplomats. “I always knew he was very smart,” he tweeted. 
 
 An FBI spokesman declined to comment after the CNN report.
– Donald Trump isn't the only person making recent claims of phony news stories. Vladimir Putin says an explosive dossier on Trump published by BuzzFeed last week, which included allegations Russia had compromising information on the president-elect, is an "obvious fake" and "nonsense," Russia's Interfax and TASS news agencies report, via Business Insider and the AP. Not only that, but any individuals behind the claims in the dossier are "worse than prostitutes," Putin said at a Tuesday press conference in Moscow. Speaking of prostitutes, Trump "has been with the most beautiful women in the world, so why would he need prostitutes in Moscow? Trump organized beauty contests. I find it hard to believe that he rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world." He further said that Russian spies "don't chase every American billionaire." Putin called Trump's win in November a "convincing victory" and added that the Obama administration is behind the "ongoing acute political struggle … whose task is to undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect." He also emphasized that he doesn't know Trump personally and so wouldn't have a motive to make moves for or against him.