Kremlin denies accusations that Russia tried to hack U.S. voting equipment

[June 06, 2017]  MOSCOW (Reuters) - Accusations that Russian intelligence services were seeking to hack U.S. voting equipment as part of a broader effort to interfere in the U.S. presidential election are false and unfounded, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

"This assertion has absolutely nothing to do with reality," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. "We have heard no arguments proving the veracity of this information ... Therefore we strongly deny the very possibility that this could have happened."

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday charged a federal contractor with sending classified material to a news organization that sources identified to Reuters as The Intercept.

The Intercept's reporting revealed new details behind the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian intelligence services were seeking to infiltrate state voter registration systems, discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and help then Republican candidate Donald Trump win the election.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Jack Stubbs)

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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony of naming of a new Russian Arctic LNG tanker after Christophe de Margerie, the late CEO of French oil corporation Total S.A., who has died in an aircraft crash in Moscow on October 20, 2014, on the side line of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia, June 3, 2017. REUTERS/Olga Maltseva/Pool