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Donald Trump says U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper denounced Russia report

Click to play video: 'Trump ramps up his war with the media as allegations of Russian ties continue to mount'
Trump ramps up his war with the media as allegations of Russian ties continue to mount
WATCH ABOVE: Just a week to inauguration day and President-elect Donald Trump is keeping up his war of words with the media over unverified reports that Russia has compromising information on him. The revelation dominated Mister Trump's first post-election news conference yesterday. – Jan 12, 2017

WASHINGTON – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday that U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called him to denounce the “false and fictitious” report about a dossier that makes salacious claims about him in Russia.

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“James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Clapper said he spoke with Trump on Wednesday evening and told the president-elect he did not believe the media leaks came from the intelligence community.

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“I expressed my profound dismay at the leaks that have been appearing in the press, and we both agreed that they are extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security,” Clapper said in a statement.

READ MORE: Donald Trump: BuzzFeed a ‘pile of garbage’ for publishing unverified docs

He defended including the dossier in the intelligence report Trump received on Friday, saying “part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.”

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Clapper said he emphasized to Trump that the dossier was not produced by the U.S. intelligence community and intelligence officials have not judged whether the information is reliable.

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“I emphasized that this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC,” Clapper said. “The IC has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.

“However, part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security,” Clapper said.

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