Overview
- President Donald Trump delivered a 25-minute White House address on Thursday in which he said he would declassify intelligence on foreign governments’ abilities to compromise U.S. election systems and named China, Iran and Russia as potential threats.
- The Kremlin, through spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday, strongly denied that Russia has ever interfered in U.S. elections and called the U.S. allegations vague and unsubstantiated.
- Peskov told reporters that, in the Kremlin’s view, earlier U.S. investigations and congressional probes had found no evidence that Russia altered U.S. election outcomes and he presented those findings as part of Moscow’s rebuttal.
- The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin will meet later the same day with the permanent members of the Russian Security Council, a routine forum the government uses to coordinate national security and foreign-policy responses.
- China also rejected U.S. claims about acquiring large U.S. voter data sets, and U.S. political opponents said the White House address could sow confusion before November; the exchange risks raising diplomatic tensions and increasing scrutiny of U.S. intelligence disclosures.