Russian President Vladimir Putin reached into the annals of American history to deny meddling with the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately for him, Putin stumbled a bit with the specifics in his denial.
Putin participated in a panel Thursday that featured Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and CNBC's Geoff Cutmore, who moderated the event at the International Arctic Forum in Russia. During the panel, Putin was asked about the ongoing investigation into possible Russian interference in the U.S. election.
"Let me be very clear about this, you and the Russian government never tried to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and there will be no evidence found?" Cutmore asked.
"Ronald Reagan once, debating about taxes and addressing Americans, said 'Read my lips—no,'" Putin responded, according to a CNBC translation.
"Read my lips: no new taxes," however, was said not by Reagan but his successor, former President George H.W. Bush, who made the pledge during the 1988 campaign. And the promise became famous, or infamous, because Bush later reneged and agreed to a bipartisan bill that increased taxes. Bush, who failed to earn a second term as president, was widely criticized for walking back the promise, but considered it the right thing to do for the American economy.
And despite Putin's denial, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russia—through hacks and a so-called influence campaign—worked to get Trump elected over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Congress and the FBI continue to investigate if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the apparent influence campaign. Trump has denied any collusion with Russia and Putin dismissed any allegations of wrongdoing during the panel Thursday.
"All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies," he said, according to CNBC. "All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside."
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