The Kremlin said on Tuesday it had noted that U.S. charges against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide, Rick Gates, did not point the finger at Russia over alleged meddling in U.S. politics.
Federal investigators probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, something Moscow denies, charged Manafort and Gates with money laundering on Monday.
Absence of allegations
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had noted the absence of allegations against Russia in the indictment, saying Moscow had always said it had never meddled in the U.S. election.
“...Russia does not feature in the charges that were levelled in any way. Other countries and other people feature (in the charges),” Mr. Peskov told a conference call with reporters.
“Moscow never felt itself guilty so as to feel exonerated now,” he said, when asked whether the Kremlin interpreted the indictment as proof that its repeated denials about meddling in the U.S. presidential election had been confirmed.
Mr. Peskov said the investigation was an internal matter for the United States which Russia was not involved in, but was following with interest from afar. He added that he hoped the probe would not contribute to “already overblown, hysterical Russophobia”.
He also commented on details of a case against a third former Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI.
Papadopoulos told investigators about his efforts to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian leadership during which he said he met a London-based professor boasting of contacts with Russian officials and a Russian woman whom he described as a relative of President Vladimir Putin.
The case against Papadopoulos also mentions his contacts with someone with links to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
When asked what the Kremlin made of the details about someone linked to the Russian Foreign Ministry being cited in the Papadopoulos case, Peskov said the accusation was totally unsubstantiated.
“It’s an absolutely laughable allegation,”
‘No evidence’
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that there was no evidence of Moscow having interfered in the elections.
“We are accused of interfering not only in U.S. elections but also in those of other countries without one piece of evidence,” he said.
At a meeting of The Association of European Businesses, Mr. Lavrov also said that the “sometimes unpredictable” actions of the current U.S. administration had caused “serious fears”.
He pointed to threats to solve problems with the Korean peninsula by force, as well as Mr. Trump’s refusal to certify the Iran nuclear deal.
