US spy agencies engaged in Nazi tactics: President-elect Donald Trump

US President-elect Donald Trump has accused the country’s spy agencies of using Nazi tactics over leaking “fake news" and "phony stuff” about him to the media.  

On Tuesday, BuzzFeed published a 35-page document containing unverified information from an alleged former British operative who claimed that Trump was caught in a compromising position in Russia. 

The document also claimed that Russia is in possession of "compromising" personal and financial information about Trump which it is using to blackmail the US president-elect.

Addressing a news conference in New York on Wednesday, Trump described the published material about him as “fake” and a “political witch hunt,” and said that the leaks from the US intelligence community to some media outlets were reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

"I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out. I think it's a disgrace, and I say that ... that's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do," Trump said.

Russia on Wednesday rejected the BuzzFeed document as “completely fake,” adding that Moscow does not possess any blackmail file on Trump containing footage of him in a “compromising” position in a Moscow hotel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief spokesman and aide, Dmitry Peskov, said the BuzzFeed  report is a "complete fabrication and utter nonsense."

"This information does not correspond to reality and is no more than fiction," he said, adding that the Kremlin "does not engage in collecting compromising material."

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, address a press conference in Minsk, Belarus. (AP file photo)

Trump has called for improved relations with Moscow, saying this will benefit the entire world. He argues that only “stupid” people or “fools” would think close ties between the US and Russia were unwise.

On Saturday, he said that Moscow would “respect us far more than they do now” after he enters the White House on January 20, and stated that the two nations could perhaps work together on the international stage.

A report released by US intelligence agencies on Friday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering “an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election."

Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence agencies’ conclusions as politically motivated, but he appeared to accept Russian involvement in the election after receiving an intelligence briefing on Friday.

However, on Wednesday he reiterated his goal of closer ties with the Russian president. "If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.”

Trump also suggested that intelligence agencies even leak information when he holds meetings with their officials.  

"I have many meetings with intelligence. And every time I meet, people are reading about it. Somebody's leaking it out," he complained.

Trump has previously also cited past faulty intelligence involving the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq to raise doubts about the intelligence community's assessment now.

"These are the same people who said Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," Trump said in a statement last month.