President Donald Trump and other Republicans have latched onto revelations tying Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia, saying it’s a “disgrace” that Democrats had helped pay for research that produced the document.

“It’s just really – it’s a very sad commentary on politics in this country,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump addressed reporters one day after news reports revealed that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for several months last year, helped fund research that ultimately ended up in the dossier.

Mr Trump has called the material “phoney stuff” and “fake news,” and on Wednesday he portrayed himself as the aggrieved party, posting on Twitter a quote he said was from Fox News that referred to him as “the victim.”

"Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

The new disclosure is likely to fuel his complaints that the document is a collection of salacious and uncorroborated claims, yet the FBI has been investigating it.

And as part of the probe into possible coordination last year between Russia and the Trump campaign, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has spoken in recent weeks with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who helped compile it the material.

The dossier contends that Russia was engaged in a long-standing effort to aid Trump and had amassed compromising information about the Republican.

Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed the document as false and in recent days has questioned whether Democrats or the FBI had helped fund it.

– AP