“We are still seeing attempts to obsessively use the topic of Russian Federation during the U.S. electoral campaign”, Peskov said.
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Over 20,000 emails exchanged by party officials were leaked by hackers last week, exposing damaging information about inner party turmoil, particularly casting doubt onto central party officials’ lack of bias between the two figures who at that point were still seeking to clinch the Democratic nomination for president.
Allegations that Russian intelligence agents hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) email server with the intent of sowing discord among Democrats, to the benefit of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, were summarily dismissed by both Trump and the Kremlin – in strikingly similar terms.
Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, told reporters Sunday that “some experts are saying this was done by the Russians for the goal of Donald Trump”.
“I asked Sergei Borisovich (Ivanov) if he has met this man, and Sergei Borisovich said he would not comment on such outlandish reports”, Peskov said. Unfortunately this traditional game is continuing.
“We think that’s not very good for bilateral relations but we understand that we need to get through this unfavorable period”.
Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine on Saturday described Trump’s comments on what he would do if Russian Federation were to attack a Baltic nation as “an open invitation to Vladimir Putin to roll on in”.
Trump took to Twitter to respond to the Clinton theory: “The new joke in town is that Russian Federation leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should never have been written (stupid), because Putin likes me”.
President Vladimir Putin has generally kept a safe distance from the U.S. election, but last December he praised Trump as being “unquestionably talented”. But over the course of his year-long campaign, Trump has praised the Russian leader and one of his top foreign policy advisers, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, had dinner with Putin last December. “That is up to USA voters, but he is the absolute leader of the presidential race”.
Trump responded by hailing Putin as a “strong leader, a powerful leader”.
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The Russian leader also said he regretted that “the Russian card is used like some kind of bargaining chip at nearly every electoral campaign in the US”.
